


Imperium Aeternum

by DeadPhilosophy, Deus_Sol_Invictus



Category: Horus Heresy - Fandom, Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Alternate Heresy, Angst and Drama, Gen, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:01:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25044310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadPhilosophy/pseuds/DeadPhilosophy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deus_Sol_Invictus/pseuds/Deus_Sol_Invictus
Summary: The Warmaster is dead, seemingly murdered by First Chaplain Erebus of the Word Bearers - an infraction unforgivable to the Luna Wolves. The Mournival is in turmoil, and most of the primarchs have yet to learn of Horus's passing. Among the roiling tides of the Empyrean, the gods of the Ruinous Powers squabble and bicker among the ruins of their plans. Lorgar Aurelian, prophet of the Chaos gods, must now pick up the pieces... and may find help in some rather unexpected places.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	1. The Death of A Demi-God (Deus_Sol_Invictus)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some sections taken from False Gods by Graham McNeill  
> Written by Deus_Sol_Invictus

Flickering light filled the chamber with a cold glow, the cracked stone walls limned with crawling webs of frost, and the breath of the cultists feathering in the air. Akshub had painted a circle with eight sharp points around its circumference, on the flagstones in quicklime. The mutilated corpse of one of the Davinite priestess’s acolytes lay spread-eagled at its centre.

Erebus watched carefully as the priestess’s lodge thralls spread around the circle, ensuring that every stage of the ritual was enacted with meticulous care. To fail now, after he had invested so much effort in bringing the Warmaster to this point, would be disastrous, although Erebus knew that his part in the Warmaster’s downfall was but one of a million events set in motion thousands of years ago.

This fulcrum point in time was the culmination of billions of seemingly unrelated chains of circumstance that had led to this backwater world that no one had ever heard of.

Erebus knew that that was all about to change. Davin would soon become a place of legend.

The secret chamber in the heart of the Delphos was hidden from prying eyes by potent magic and sophisticated technology received from disaffected Mechanicum adepts, who welcomed the knowledge the Word Bearers could give them – knowledge that had been forbidden to them by the Emperor.

Akshub knelt and cut the heart from the dead acolyte, the lodge priestess expertly removing the still warm organ from its former owner’s chest. She took a bite before handing it to Tsepha, her surviving acolyte.

They passed the heart around the circle, each of the cultists taking a bite of the rich red meat. Erebus took the ghastly remains of the heart as it was passed to him. He wolfed down the last of it, feeling the blood run down his chin and tasting the final memories of the betrayed acolyte as the treacherous blade had ended her life. That betrayal had been offered unto the Architect of Fate, this bloody feast to the Blood God, and the unlovely coupling of the doomed acolyte with a diseased swine had called upon the power of the Dark Prince and the Lord of Decay.

Blood pooled beneath the corpse, trickling into channels cut in the floor before draining into a sinkhole at the centre of the circle. Erebus knew that there was always blood, it was rich with life and surged with the power of the gods. What better way was there of tapping into that power than with the vital substance that carried their blessing?

‘Is it done?’ asked Erebus.

Akshub nodded, lifting the long knife that had cut the heart from the corpse. ‘It is. The power of the Ones Who Dwell Beyond is with us, though we must be swift.’

‘Why must we hurry, Akshub?’ he asked, placing his hand upon his sword. ‘This must be done right or all our lives are forfeit.’

‘I know this,’ said the priestess. ‘There is another presence near, a one-eyed ghost who “walks between worlds and seeks to return the son to his father.’

‘Magnus, you old snake,’ chuckled Erebus, looking up towards the chamber’s roof. ‘You won’t stop us. You’re too far away and Horus is too far gone. I have seen to that.’

‘Who do you speak with?’ asked Akshub.

‘The one-eyed ghost. You said there was another presence near.’

‘Near, yes,’ said Akshub, ‘but not here.’

Tired of the old priestess’s cryptic answers, Erebus snapped, ‘Then where is he?’

Akshub reached up and tapped her head with the flat of her blade. ‘He speaks to the son, though he cannot yet reach him fully. I can feel the ghost crawling around the temple, trying to break the magic keeping his full power out.’

‘What?’ cried Erebus.

‘He will not succeed,’ said Akshub, walking towards him with the knife outstretched. ‘We have spirit-walked in the realm beyond for thousands of years and his knowledge is a paltry thing next to ours.’

‘For your sake, it had better be, Akshub.’

She smiled and held the knife out. ‘Your threats mean nothing here, warrior. I could boil the blood in your veins with a word, or rip your body inside out with a thought. You need me to send your soul into the world beyond, but how will you return if I am dead? Your soul will remain adrift in the void forever, and you are not so full of anger that you do not fear such a fate.’

Erebus did not like the sudden authority in her voice, but he knew she was right and decided he would kill her once her purpose was served. He swallowed his anger and said, ‘Then let us begin.’

‘Very well,’ nodded the priestess, as Tsepha came forward and anointed Erebus’s face with crystalline antimony. ‘Is this for the veil?’

‘Yes,’ said Akshub. ‘It will confound his senses and he will not see your likeness. He will see a face familiar and beloved to him.’

Erebus smiled at the delicious irony of the thought, and closed his eyes as Tsepha daubed his eyelids and cheeks with the stinging, silver-white powder.

‘The spell that will allow your passage to the void requires one last thing,’ said Akshub.

‘What last thing?’ asked Erebus, suddenly suspicious. ‘Your death,’ said Akshub, slashing her knife across his throat.

—

Horus opened his eyes, smiling as he saw blue sky above him. Pink and orange tinged clouds drifted slowly across his vision, peaceful and relaxing. He watched them for a few moments and then sat up, feeling wet dew beneath his palms as he pushed himself upright. He saw that he was fully armoured in his frost white plate, and as he surveyed his surroundings, he lifted his hand to his face, smelling the sweet scent on the grass and the crystal freshness of the air.

A vista of unsurpassed beauty lay before him, towering snow-capped mountains draped in a shawl of pine and fir, magnificent swathes of emerald green forests as far as the eye could see and a wide river of foaming, icy water. Hundreds of shaggy coated herbivores grazed on the plain and wide pinioned birds circled noisily overhead. Horus sat on the low slopes of the foothills at the base of the mountains, the sun warming his face and the grass wondrously soft beneath him.

‘To hell with this,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘I know I’m not dead, so what’s going on?’

Once again, no one answered him, though this time he had expected an answer. The world still smelled sweet and fragrant, but with the memory of his identity came the knowledge of its falsehood. None of this was real, not the mountains or the river or the forests that covered the landscape, though there was something oddly familiar to it.

He remembered the dark, iron backdrop that lay behind this illusion and found that if he willed it, he could see the suggestion of that nightmarish vision behind the beauty of the world laid out before him.

Horus remembered thinking – a lifetime ago, it seemed – that perhaps this place might have been some netherworld between heaven and hell, but now laughed at the idea. He had long ago accepted the principle that the universe was simply matter, and that which was not matter was nothing. The universe was everything, and therefore nothing could exist beyond it.

Horus had the wit to see why some ancient theologian had claimed that the warp was, in fact, hell. He understood the reasoning, but he knew that the Empyrean was no metaphysical dimension; it was simply an echo of the material world, where random vortices of energy and strange breeds of malign xenos creatures made their homes.

As pleasing an axiom as that was, it still didn’t answer the question of where he was.

How had he come to this place? His last memory was of speaking to Petronella Vivar in the apothecarion, telling her of his life, his hopes, his disappointments and his fears for the galaxy – conscious that he had told her those incendiary things as his valediction.

He couldn’t change that, but he would damn well get to the bottom of what was happening to him now. Was it a fever dream brought on by whatever had wounded him? Had Temba’s sword been poisoned? He dismissed that thought immediately; no poison could lay him low. Surveying his surroundings, he could see no sign of the wolves that had chased him through the dark forests, but suddenly remembered a familiar form that had ghosted behind the face of the pack leader. For the briefest instant, it had looked like Magnus, but surely he was back on Prospero licking his wounds after the Council of Nikaea?

Something had happened to Horus on Davin’s moon, but he had no idea what. His shoulder ached and he rotated it within his armour to loosen the muscle, but the motion served only to further aggravate it. Horus set off in the direction of the river once more, still thirsty despite knowing that he walked in an illusory realm.

Cresting the rise that then began to slope gently down towards the river, Horus pulled up sharply as he saw something startling: an armoured Astartes warrior floating face down in the water. Wedged in the shallows of the riverbank, the body rose and fell with the swell of the water, and Horus swiftly made his way towards it.

He splashed into the river and gripped the edges of the figure’s shoulder guards, turning the body over with a heavy splash.

Horus gasped, seeing that the man was alive, and that it was someone he knew.

A beautiful man was how Loken had described him, a beautiful man who had been adored by all who knew him. The noblest hero of the Great Crusade had been another of his epithets.

Hastur Sejanus.

‘HASTUR!’ cried Horus, reaching down to lift his fallen friend from the water. Sejanus was limp in his arms, though Horus could tell he lived by the pulse in his throat and the colour in his cheeks. Horus dragged Sejanus from the water, wondering if his presence might be another of the strange realm’s illusions or if his old friend might in fact be a threat to him.

Sejanus’s chest hiked convulsively as he brought up a lungful of water, and Horus rolled him onto his side, knowing that the genhanced physique of an Astartes warrior made it almost impossible for him to drown.

‘Hastur, is it really you?’ asked Horus, knowing that in this place, such a question was probably meaningless, but overcome with joy to see his beloved Sejanus again. He Remembered the pain he had felt when his most favoured son had been hacked down upon the onyx floor of the false Emperor’s palace on Sixty-Three Nineteen, and the Cthonic bellicosity that had demanded blood vengeance.

Sejanus heaved a last flood of water and propped himself up on his elbow, sucking great lungfuls of the clean air. His hand clutched at his throat as though searching for something, and he looked relieved to find that it wasn’t there.

‘My son,’ said Horus as Sejanus turned towards him. He was exactly as Horus remembered him, perfect in every detail: the noble face, wide set eyes and firm, straight nose that could be a mirror for the Warmaster himself.

Any thoughts that Sejanus might be a threat to him were swept away as he saw the silver shine of his eyes and knew that this surely was Hastur Sejanus. How such a thing was possible was beyond him, but he did not question this miracle for fear that it might be snatched away from him.

‘Commander,’ said Sejanus, rising to embrace Horus.

‘Damn me, boy, it’s good to see you,’ said Horus. ‘Part of me died when I lost you.’

‘I know, sir,’ replied Sejanus as they released each other from the crushing embrace. ‘I felt your sorrow.’

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, my boy,’ said Horus, taking a step back to admire his most perfect warrior. ‘It gladdens my heart to see you, but how can this be? I watched you die.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Sejanus. ‘You did, but, in truth, my death was a blessing.’

‘A blessing? How?’

‘It opened my eyes to the truth of the universe and freed me from the shackles of living knowledge. Death is no longer an undiscovered country, my lord, it is one from which this traveler has returned.’

‘How is such a thing possible?’

‘They sent me back to you,’ said Sejanus. ‘My spirit was lost in the void, alone and dying, but I have come back to help you.’

Conflicting emotions surged through Horus at the sight of Sejanus. To hear him speak of spirits and voids struck a note of warning, but to see him alive once more, even if it wasn’t real, was something to be cherished.

‘You say you’re here to help me? Then help me to understand this place. Where are we?’

‘We don’t have much time,’ said Sejanus, climbing the slope to the rise that overlooked the plains and forests, and taking a long look around. ‘He’ll be here soon.’

‘That’s not the first time I’ve heard that recently,’ said Horus.

‘From where else have you heard it?’ demanded Sejanus, turning back to face him with a serious expression. Horus was surprised at the vehemence of the question.

‘A wolf said it to me,’ said Horus. ‘I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I swear it really did speak to me.’

‘I believe you, sir,’ said Sejanus. ‘That’s why we need to move on.’

Horus sensed evasion, a trait he had never known in Sejanus before now and said, ‘You’re avoiding my question, Hastur, now tell me where we are.’

‘We don’t have time, my lord,’ urged Sejanus.

‘Sejanus,’ said Horus, his voice that of the Warmaster. ‘Tell me what I want to know.’

‘Very well,’ said Sejanus, ‘but quickly, for your body lies on the brink of death within the walls of the Delphos on Davin.’

‘The Delphos? I’ve never heard of it, and this doesn’t look like Davin.’

‘The Delphos is a place sacred to the Lodge of the Serpent,’ said Sejanus. ‘A place of healing. In the ancient tongues of Earth its name means “the womb of the world”, where a man may be healed and renewed. Your body lies in the Axis Mundi chamber, but your spirit is no longer tied to your flesh,’

‘So we’re not really here?’ asked Horus. ‘This world isn’t real?’

‘No.’

‘Then this is the warp,’ said Horus, finally accepting what he had begun to suspect.

‘Yes. None of this is real,’ said Sejanus, waving his hand around the landscape. ‘All this is but fragments of your will and memory that have given shape to the formless energy of the warp.’

Horus suddenly knew where he had seen this land before, remembering the wondrous geophysical relief map of Terra they had found ten kilometres beneath a dead world almost a decade ago. It hadn’t been the Terra of their time, but one of an age long past, with green fields, clear seas and clean air.

He looked up into the sky, half expecting to see curious faces looking down on him from above like students studying an ant colony, but the sky was empty, though it was darkening at an unnatural rate. The world around him was changing before his eyes from the Earth that had once existed to the barren wasteland of Terra.

Sejanus followed his gaze and said, ‘It’s beginning.’

‘What is?’ asked Horus.

‘Your mind and body are dying and this world is beginning to collapse into Chaos.’

‘That’s why they sent me back, to guide you to the truth that will allow you to return to your body.’

Even as Sejanus spoke, the sky began to waver and he could see hints of the roiling sea of the Immaterium seething behind the clouds.

‘You keep saying “they”,’ said Horus. ‘Who are “they” and why are they interested in me?’

‘Great intelligences dwell in the warp,’ explained Sejanus, casting wary glances at the dissolution of the sky. ‘They do not communicate as we do and this is the only way they could reach you.’

‘I don’t like the sound of this, Hastur,’ warned Horus.

‘There is no malice in this place. There is power and potential, yes, but no malice, simply the desire to exist. Events in our galaxy are destroying this realm and these powers have chosen you to be their emissary in their dealings with the material world.’

‘And what if I don’t want to be their emissary?’

‘Then you will die,’ said Sejanus. ‘Only they are powerful enough to save your life now.’

‘If they’re so powerful, what do they need me for?’

‘They are powerful, but they cannot exist in the material universe and must work through emissaries,’ replied Sejanus. ‘You are a man of strength and ambition and they know there is no other being in the galaxy powerful enough or worthy enough to do what must be done.’

Despite his satisfaction at being so described, Horus did not like what he was hearing. He sensed no deceit in Sejanus, though a warning voice in his head reminded him that the silver-eyed warrior standing before him could not truly be Sejanus.

‘They have no interest in the material universe, it is anathema to them, they simply wish to preserve their own realm from destruction,’ continued Sejanus as the chemical reek of the world beyond the illusion returned, and a stinking wind arose. ‘In return for your aid, they can give you a measure of their power and the means to realize your every ambition.’

Horus saw the lurking world of brazen iron become more substantial as the warp and weft of reality began to buckle beneath his feet. Cracks of dark light shimmered through the splitting earth and Horus could hear the sound of howling wolves drawing near.

‘We have to move!’ shouted Sejanus as the wolf pack loped from a disintegrating copse of trees. To Horus, it sounded as though their howls desperately called his name.

Sejanus ran back to the river and a shimmering flat oblong of light rose from the boiling water. Horus heard whispers and strange mutterings issuing from beyond it, and a sense of dark premonition seized him as he switched his gaze between this strange light and the wolves.

‘I’m not sure about this,’ said Horus as the sky shed fat droplets of acid rain.

‘Come on, the gateway is our only way out!’ cried Sejanus, heading towards the light. ‘As a great man once said, “Towering genius disdains the beaten path; it seeks regions hitherto unexplored”.’

‘You’re quoting me back to myself?’ said Horus as the wind blew in howling gusts.

‘Why not? Your words will be quoted for centuries to come.’

Horus smiled, liking the idea of being quotable, and set off after Sejanus.

‘Where does this gate lead?’ shouted Horus over the wind and the howling of wolves.

‘To the truth,’ replied Sejanus.

—

“Passing through the gate of light was akin to stepping from one room to another. Where once had been a world on the verge of dissolution, now Horus found himself standing amid a heaving mass of people, in a huge circular plaza surrounded by soaring towers and magnificently appointed buildings of marble. Thousands of people filled the square, and since he was half again as tall as the tallest, Horus could see that thousands more waited to enter from nine arterial boulevards.

Strangely, none of these people remarked on the sudden arrival of two giant warriors in their midst. A cluster of statues stood at the centre of the plaza, and droning chants drifted from corroded speakers set on the buildings, as the mass of humanity marched in mindless procession around them. A pealing clangour of bells tolled from each building.

‘Where are we?’ asked Horus, looking up at the great eagle-fronted buildings, their golden spires and their colossal stained glass rosary windows. Each structure vied with its neighbour for supremacy of height and ostentation, and Horus’s eye for architectural proportion and elegance saw them as vulgar expressions of devotion.

‘I do not know the name of this palace’, said Sejanus. ‘I know only what I have seen here, but I believe it to be some kind of shrine world.’

‘A shrine world? A shrine to what?’

‘Not what,’ said Sejanus, pointing to the statues in the centre of the plaza. ‘Who.’

Horus looked more closely at the enormous statues, encircled by the thronged masses. The outer ring of statues was carved from white marble, and each gleaming warrior was clad in full Astartes battle plate. They surrounded the central figure, which was likewise armoured in a magnificent suit of gold armour that gleamed and sparkled with precious gems. This figure carried a flaming torch high, the light of it illuminating everything around him. The symbolism was clear – this central figure was bringing his light to the people, and his warriors were there to protect him.

The gold warrior was clearly a king or hero of some kind, his features regal and patrician, though the sculptor had exaggerated them to ludicrous proportions. The proportions of the statues surrounding the central figure were similarly grotesque.

‘Who is the gold statue meant to be?’ asked Horus.

‘You don’t recognize him?’ asked Sejanus.

‘No. Should I?’

‘Let’s take a closer look.’

Horus followed as Sejanus set off into the crowd, making his way towards the centre of the plaza, and the crowds parted before them without so much as a raised eyebrow.

‘Can’t these people see us?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Sejanus. ‘Or if they can, they will forget us in an instant. We move amongst them as ghosts and none here will remember us.’

Horus stopped in front of a man dressed in a threadbare scapular, who shuffled around the statues on bloodied feet. His hair was tonsured and he clutched a handful of carved bones tied together with twine. A bloody bandage covered one eye and a long strip of parchment pinned to his scapular dangled to the ground.

‘With barely a pause, the man stepped around him, but Horus put out his arm and prevented his progress. Again, the man attempted to pass Horus, but again he was prevented.

‘Please, sir,’ said the man without looking up. ‘I must get by.’

‘Why?’ asked Horus. ‘What are you doing?’

The man looked puzzled, as though struggling to recall what he had been asked.

‘I must get by,’ he said again.

Exasperated by the man’s unhelpful answers, Horus stepped aside to let him pass. The man bowed his head and said, ‘The Emperor watch over you, sir.’

Horus felt a clammy sensation crawl along his spine at the words. He pushed through the unresisting crowds towards the centre of the plaza as a terrible suspicion began forming in his gut. He caught up to Sejanus, who stood atop a stepped plinth at the foot of the statues, where a huge pair of bronze eagles formed the backdrop to a tall lectern.

A hugely fat official in a gold chasuble and tall mitre of silk and gold read aloud from a thick, leather-bound book, his words carried over the crowd via silver trumpets held aloft by what looked like winged infants that floated above him.

As Horus approached, he saw that the official was human only from the waist up, a complex series of hissing pistons and brass rods making up his lower half and fusing him with the lectern, which he now saw was mounted on a wheeled base.

Horus ignored him, looking up at the statues, finally seeing them for what they were.

Though their faces were unrecognizable to one who knew them as Horus did, their identities were unmistakable.

The nearest was Sanguinius, his outstretched wings like the pinions of the eagles that adorned every structure surrounding the plaza. To one side of the Lord of the Angels was Rogal Dorn, the unfurled wings haloing his head, unmistakable; on the other, was someone who could only be Leman Russ, his hair carved to resemble a wild mane, and wearing a cloak of wolf pelts draped around his massive shoulders.

Horus circled the statues, seeing other familiar images: Guilliman, Corax, the Lion, Ferrus Manus, Vulkan and finally Jaghatai Khan.

There could be no doubting the identity of the central figure now, and Horus looked up into the carved face of the Emperor. No doubt the inhabitants of this world thought it magnificent, but Horus knew this was a poor thing, failing spectacularly to capture the sheer dynamism and force of the Emperor’s personality.

With the additional height offered by the statues’ plinth, Horus looked out over the slowly circling mass of people and wondered what they thought they did in this place.

Pilgrims, thought Horus, the word leaping, unbidden, to his mind.

Coupled with the ostentation and vulgar adornments he saw on the surrounding buildings, Horus knew that this was not simply a place of devotion, but something much more.

‘This is a place of worship,’ he said as Sejanus joined him at the foot of Corax’s statue, the cool marble perfectly capturing the pallid complexion of his taciturn brother.

Sejanus nodded and said, ‘It is an entire world given over to the praise of the Emperor.’

‘But why? The Emperor is no god. He spent centuries freeing humanity from the shackles of religion. This makes no sense.’

‘Not from where you stand in time, but this is the Imperium that will come to pass if events continue on their present course,’ said Sejanus. ‘The Emperor has the gift of foresight and he has seen this future time.’

‘For what purpose?’

‘To destroy the old faiths so that one day his cult would more easily supplant them all.’

‘No,’ said Horus, ‘I won’t believe that. My father always refuted any notion of divinity. He once said of ancient Earth that there were torches, who were the teachers, but also extinguishers, who were the priests. He would never have condoned this.’

‘This this entire world is his temple,’ Sejanus said, ‘and it is not the only one.’

‘There are more worlds like this?’

‘Hundreds,’ nodded Sejanus, ‘probably even thousands.’

‘But the Emperor shamed Lorgar for behaviour such as this,’ protested Horus. ‘The Word Bearers Legion raised great monuments to the Emperor and persecuted entire populations for their lack of faith, but the Emperor would not stand for it and said that Lorgar shamed him with such displays.’

‘He wasn’t ready for worship then: he didn’t have control of the galaxy. That’s why he needed you.’

Horus turned away from Sejanus and looked up into the golden face of his father, desperate to refute the words he was hearing. At any other time, he would have struck Sejanus down for such a suggestion, but the evidence was here before him.

He turned to face Sejanus. ‘These are some of my brothers, but where are the others? Where am I?’

‘I do not know,’ replied Sejanus. ‘I have walked this place many times, but have never yet seen your likeness.’

‘I am his chosen regent!’ cried Horus. ‘I fought on a thousand battlefields for him. The blood of my warriors is on his hands, and he ignores me like I don’t exist?’

‘The Emperor has forsaken you, Warmaster,’ urged Sejanus. ‘Soon he will turn his back on his people to win his place amongst the gods. He cares only for himself and his power and glory. We were all deceived. We have no place in his grand scheme, and when the time comes, he will spurn us all and ascend to godhood. While we were fighting war after war in his name, he was secretly building his power in the warp.’

The droning chant of the official – a priest, realized Horus – continued as the pilgrims maintained the slow procession around their god, and Sejanus’s words hammered against his skull.

‘This can’t be true,’ whispered Horus.

‘What does a being of the Emperor’s magnitude do after he has conquered the galaxy? What is left for him but godhood? What use has he for those whom he leaves behind?’

‘No!’ shouted Horus, stepping from the plinth and smashing the droning priest to the ground. The augmented preacher hybrid was torn from the pulpit and lay screaming in a pool of blood and oil. His cries were carried across the plaza by the trumpets of the floating infants, though none of the crowd seemed inclined to help him.

Horus set off into the crowded plaza in a blind fury, leaving Sejanus behind on the plinth of statues. Once again, the crowd parted before his headlong dash, as unresponsive to his leaving as they had been to his arrival. Within moments he reached the edge of the plaza and made his way down the nearest of the arterial boulevards. People filled the street, but they ignored him as he pushed his way through them, each face turned in rapture to an image of the Emperor.

Without Sejanus beside him, Horus realized that he was completely alone. He heard the howl of a distant wolf, its cry once again sounding as though it called out to him. He stopped in the centre of a crowded street, listening for the wolf howl again, but it was silenced as suddenly as it had come.

The crowds flowed around him as he listened, and Horus saw that once again, no one paid him the slightest bit of attention. Not since Horus had parted from his father and brothers had he felt so isolated. Suddenly he felt the pain of being confronted with the scale of his own vanity and pride as he as he realized how much he thrived on the adoration of those around him.

On every face, he saw the same blind devotion as he had witnessed in those that circled the statues, a beloved reverence for a man he called father. Didn’t these people realize the victories that had won their freedom had been won with Horus’s blood?

It should be Horus’s statue surrounded by his brother primarchs, not the Emperor’s!

Horus seized the nearest devotee and shook him violently by the shoulders, shouting, ‘He is not a god! He is not a god!’

The pilgrim’s neck snapped with an audible crack and Horus felt the bones of the man’s shoulders splinter beneath his iron grip. Horrified, he dropped the dead man and ran deeper into the labyrinth of the shrine world, taking turns at random, as he sought to lose himself in its crowded streets.

Each fevered change of direction took him along thronged avenues of worshippers and marvels dedicated to the glory of the God-Emperor: thoroughfares where every cobblestone was inscribed with prayer, kilometre high ossuaries of gold plated bones, and forests of marble columns, with unnumbered saints depicted upon them.

Random demagogues roamed the streets, one fanatically mortifying his flesh with prayer whips while another held up two squares of orange cloth by the corners and screamed that he would not wear them. Horus could make no sense of any of it.

Vast prayer ships drifted over this part of the shrine city, monstrously bloated zeppelins with sweeping brass sails and enormous prop-driven motors. Long prayer banners hung from their fat silver hulls, and hymns blared from hanging loudspeakers shaped like ebony skulls.

Horus passed a great mausoleum where flocks of ivory-skinned angels with brass-feathered wings flew from dark archways and descended into the crowds gathered in front of the building. The solemn angels swooped over the wailing masses, occasionally gathering to pluck some ecstatic soul from the pilgrims, and cries of adoration and praise followed each supplicant as he was carried through the dread portals of the mausoleum.

Horus saw death venerated in the coloured glass of every window, celebrated in the carvings on every door, and revered in the dirges that echoed from the trumpets of winged children who giggled as they circled like birds of prey. Flapping banners of bone clattered, and the wind whistled through the eye sockets of skulls set into shrine caskets on bronze poles. Morbidity hung like a shroud upon this world, and Horus could not reconcile the dark, gothic solemnity of this new religion with the dynamic force of truth, reason and confidence that had driven the Great Crusade into the stars.

High temples and grim shrines passed him in a blur: cenobites and preachers haranguing the pilgrims from every street corner to the peal of doomsayers’ bells. Everywhere Horus looked, he saw walls adorned with frescoes, paintings and bas relief works of familiar faces – his brothers and the Emperor himself.

Why was there no representation of Horus?

It was as if he had never existed. He sank to his knees, raising his fists to the sky.

‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’

Sejanus found him on the steps of a vaulted basilica, its wide doorway flanked by tall skeletons wrapped in funeral robes and holding flaming censers out before them. Though darkness had fallen, the streets of the city still thronged with worshippers, each carrying a lit taper or lantern to light the way.

Horus looked up as Sejanus approached, thinking that the processions of light through the city would have seemed beautiful at any other time. The pageantry and pomp of the palanquins and altars being carried along the streets would previously have irritated him, were the procession in his honour, but now he craved them.

‘Have you seen all you need to see?’ asked Sejanus, sitting beside him on the steps.

‘Yes,’ replied Horus. ‘I wish to leave this place.’

‘We can leave whenever you want, just say the word,’ said Sejanus. ‘There is more you need to see anyway, and our time is not infinite. Your body is dying and you must make your choice before you are beyond the help of even the powers that dwell in the warp.’

‘This choice,’ asked Horus, ‘Does it involve what I think it does?’

‘Only you can decide that,’ said Sejanus as the doors to the basilica opened behind them.

Horus looked over his shoulder, seeing a familiar oblong of light where he would have expected to see a darkened vestibule.

‘Very well,’ he said, standing and turning towards the light. ‘So where are we going now?’

‘To the beginning,’ answered Sejanus.

BZZZT

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‘Why did you bring me here?’ asked Horus, backing away from the silver tank. The eyes on the other side of the glass watched him curiously, clearly aware of him in a way that everyone else they had encountered on this strange odyssey was not. Though he knew with utter certainty who those eyes belonged to, he couldn’t accept that this sterile chamber far beneath the earth was where the glory of his life had begun.

Raised on Cthonia under the black smog of the smelteries – that had been his home, his earliest memories a blur of confusing images and feelings. Nothing in his memory recalled this place or the awareness that must have grown within…

‘You have seen the ultimate goal of the Emperor, my friend,’ said Sejanus. ‘Now it is time for you to see how he began his quest for godhood.’

‘With the primarchs?’ said Horus. ‘That makes no sense.’

‘It makes perfect sense. You were to be his generals. Like unto gods, you would bestride planets and claim back the galaxy for him. You were a weapon, Horus, a weapon to be cast aside once blunted and past all usefulness.’

Horus turned from Sejanus and marched along the walkway, stopping periodically to peer through the glass of the tanks. He saw something different in each one, light and form indistinguishable, organisms like architecture, eyes and wheels turning in circles of fire. Power like nothing he had known was at work, and he could feel the potent energies surrounding and protecting the tanks, rippling across his skin like waves in the air.

He stopped by the tank with XI stenciled upon it and placed his hand against the smooth steel, feeling the untapped glories that might have lain ahead for what grew within, but knowing that they would never come to pass. He leaned forward to look within.

‘You know what happens here, Horus,’ said Sejanus. ‘You are not long for this place.’

‘Yes,’ said Horus. ‘There was an accident. We were lost, scattered across the stars until the Emperor discovered us.’

‘No,’ said Sejanus. ‘There was no accident.’ Horus turned from the glass, confused. ‘What are you talking about? Of course there was. We were hurled from Terra like leaves in a storm. I came to Cthonia, Russ to Fenris, Sanguinius to Baal and the others to the worlds they were raised on.’

‘No, you misunderstand me. I meant that it wasn’t an accident,’ said Sejanus. ‘Look around you. You know how far beneath the earth we are and you saw the protective wards carved on the doors that led here. What manner of accident do you think could reach into this facility and scatter you so far across the galaxy? And what were the chances of you all coming to rest on ancient homeworlds of humanity?’

Horus had no answer for him and leaned on the walkway’s railing taking deep breaths as Sejanus approached him. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I am suggesting nothing. I am telling you what happened.’

‘You are telling me nothing!’ roared Horus. ‘You fill my head with speculation and conjecture, but you tell me nothing concrete. Maybe I’m being stupid, I don’t know, so explain what you mean in plain words.’

‘Very well,’ nodded Sejanus. ‘I will tell you of your creation.’

‘The Emperor knew he would need the greatest warriors to lead his armies,’ began Sejanus. ‘To lead such warriors as the Astartes needed commanders like gods. Commanders who were virtually indestructible and could command superhuman warriors in the blink of an eye. They would be engineered to be leaders of men, mighty warlords whose martial prowess was only matched by the Emperor’s, each with his own particular skills.’

‘The primarchs.’

‘Indeed. Only beings of such magnitude could even think of conquering the galaxy. Can you imagine the hubris and will required even to contemplate such an endeavor? What manner of man could even consider it? Who but a primarch could be trusted with such a monumental task? No man, not even the Emperor, could achieve such a god-like undertaking alone. Hence you were created.’

‘To conquer the galaxy for humanity,’ said Horus.

‘No, not for humanity, for the Emperor,’ said Sejanus. ‘You already know in your heart what awaits you when the Great Crusade is over. You will become a gaoler who polices the Emperor’s regime while he ascends to godhood and abandons you all. What sort of reward is that for someone who conquered the galaxy?’

‘It is no reward at all,’ snarled Horus, hammering his hand into the side of the silver tank before him. The metal buckled and a hairline crack split the toughened glass under his assault. He could hear a desperate drumming from inside, and a hiss of escaping gas whined from the frosted panel of the tank.

‘Look around you, Horus,’ said Sejanus. ‘Do you think that the science of man alone could have created a being such as a primarch? If such technology existed, why not create a hundred Horuses, a thousand? No, a bargain was made that saw you emerge from its forging. I know, for the masters of the warp are as much your father as the Emperor.’

‘No!’ shouted Horus. ‘I won’t believe you. The primarchs are my brothers, the Emperor’s sons created from his own flesh and blood and each a part of him.’

‘Each a part of him, yes, but where did such power come from? He bargained with the gods of the warp for a measure of their power. That is what he invested in you, not his paltry human power.’

‘The gods of the warp? What are you talking about, Sejanus?’

‘The entities whose realm is being destroyed by the Emperor,’ said Sejanus. ‘Intelligences, xenos creatures, gods? Does it matter what terminology we use for them? They have such incredible power that they might as well be gods by your reckoning. They command the secrets of life and death and all that lies between. Experience, change, war and decay, they are all are part of the endless cycle of existence, and the gods of the warp hold dominion over them all. Their power flows through your veins and bestows incredible abilities upon you. The Emperor has long known of them and he came to them many centuries ago, offering friendship and devotion.’

‘He would never do such a thing!’ denied Horus.

‘You underestimate his lust for power, my friend,’ said Sejanus as they made their way back towards the steps that led down to the laboratory floor. ‘The gods of the warp are powerful, but they do not understand this material universe, and the Emperor was able to betray them, stealing away their power for himself. In creating you, he passed on but a tiny measure of that power.’

Horus felt his breath come in short, painful bursts. He wanted to deny Sejanus’s words, but part of him knew that this was no lie. Like any man, his future was uncertain, but his past had always been his own. His glories and life had been forged with his own two hands, but even now, they were being stripped away from him by the Emperor’s treachery.

‘So we are tainted,’ whispered Horus. ‘All of us.’

‘Tainted, no,’ said Sejanus, shaking his head. ‘The power of the warp simply is. Used wisely and by a man of power it can be a weapon like no other. It can be mastered and it can be a powerful tool for one with the will to use it.’

‘Then why did the Emperor not use it well?’

‘Because he was weak,’ said Sejanus, leaning in close to Horus. ‘Unlike you, he lacked the will to master it, and the gods of the warp do not take kindly to those who betray them. The Emperor had taken a measure of their power for himself, but they struck back at him.’

‘How?’

‘You will see. With the power he stole from them, he was too powerful for them to attack directly, but they had foreseen a measure of his plans and they struck at what he needed most to realise those plans.’

‘The primarchs?’

‘The primarchs,’ agreed Sejanus, walking back down the length of walkway. Horus heard distant sirens blare and felt the air within the chamber become more agitated, as if a cold electric current whipped from molecule to molecule.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked, as the sirens grew louder.

TRANSMISSION LOST

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‘Justice,’ said Sejanus.

The reflective surfaces of the tanks lit up as an actinic blue light appeared above them, and Horus looked up to see a blob of dirty light swirling into existence just below the ceiling. Like a miniature galaxy, it hung suspended above the silver incubation tanks, growing larger with every passing second. A powerful wind tugged at Horus and he hung onto the railing as a shrieking howl issued from the spreading vortex above him.

‘What is that?’ he shouted, working his way along the railing towards the stairs. ‘You know what it is, Horus,’ said Sejanus.

‘We have to get out of here.’

‘It’s too late for that,’ said Sejanus, taking his arm in an iron grip.

‘Take your hand off me, Sejanus,’ warned Horus, ‘or whatever your name is. I know you’re not Sejanus, so you might as well stop pretending.’

“Even as he spoke, he saw a group of armoured warriors rushing through the chamber’s doorway towards them. There were six of them, each with the build of an Astartes, but without a suit of battle plate, they were less bulked out and gigantic. They wore fabulously ornate gold breastplates decorated with eagles and lightning bolts, and each wore a tall, peaked helm of bronze with a red, horsehair plume.

Scarlet cloaks billowed behind them in the cyclone that swept through the chamber. Long spears with boltguns slung beneath long, crackling blades were aimed at him, and he instantly recognised the warriors for what they were – the Custodian Guard, the Praetorians of the Emperor himself.

‘Halt, fiends and face thy judgement!’ shouted the lead warrior, aiming his guardian spear at Horus’s heart. Though the warrior wore an enclosing helm, Horus would have recognised his eyes and that voice anywhere.

‘Valdor!’ cried Horus. ‘Constantin Valdor. It’s me, it’s Horus.’

‘Be silent!’ shouted Valdor. ‘End this foul conjuration now!’

Horus looked up at the ceiling, feeling the power contained within that swirling maelstrom tugging at him like the call of a long lost friend. He forced its siren song from his mind, dropped to the floor of the chamber and took a step forward.

Popping blasts of light erupted from the Custodians’ spears, and Horus was forced to his knees by the hammering impacts of their shells. The howling gale swallowed the noise of the shots, and Horus cried out, not with pain, but with the knowledge that fellow warriors of the Imperium had fired upon him.

More blasts struck him, tearing great chunks from his armour, but none was able to defeat its protection. The Custodians advanced in disciplined ranks, pouring their fire into him and keeping him pinned beneath its weight. Sejanus ducked behind the stairs, sparks and smoking chunks ripping from the metal as the explosive bolts tore through it.

Horus roared in anger and surged to his feet, all thoughts of restraint forgotten as he found himself at the centre of the deafening storm. A bolt clipped his gorget and almost spun him around, but it was not enough to stop him. He ripped the guardian spear from the nearest Custodian and smashed his skull to splinters with a single blow from his fist.

He reversed his grip on the spear and slashed the next Custodian from collarbone to groin, the two shorn halves swept up by the howling winds and vanishing into the crackling vortex. Another Custodian died as Horus rammed the spear through his chest and split him in two.

A blade lanced for his head, but he shattered it with a swipe of his fist and ripped the arm from his attacker with casual ease. Another Custodian died as Horus tore his head off in his mighty fist, blood gushing from the neck, as if from a geyser, as he tossed the severed head aside.

Only Valdor remained, and Horus snarled as he rounded on the Chief Custodian. A blaze of light erupted from the barrel of Valdor’s guardian spear. Horus grunted at the impacts and raised his fist to strike Valdor down, hearing metal squeal and tear as the force of the hurricane reaching from the vortex above finally achieved its goal.

Horus paused in his attack, suddenly terrified for the fate of those inside the tanks. He turned and saw one tank spewing gasses and screams as it was ripped from the ground, following others as they were torn from their moorings and swept upwards.

Then time stopped and a blinding light filled the chamber.

ERROR

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FAILURE TO…

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RECONNECTING

Horus felt warm honey flow through him, and he turned towards the source of the light: a shimmering golden giant of unimaginable majesty and beauty.

Horus dropped to his knees in rapture at the sight. Who would not strive to worship so perfect a being? Power and certainty flowed from the figure, the secret mystery of creation at his fingertips, the answers to any question that could be asked there for the knowing, and the wisdom to know how to use them.

He wore armour that gleamed a perfect gold, his features impossible to know, and his glory and power unmatched by any being in creation.

The golden warrior moved as though in slow motion, raising his hand to halt the madness of the vortex with a gesture. The maelstrom was silenced, the tumbling incubation tanks suspended in mid air.

The golden figure turned a puzzled gaze upon Horus.

‘I know you?’ he said, and Horus wept to hear such a perfect symphony of sound.

‘Yes,’ said Horus, unable to raise his voice above a whisper.

The giant cocked his head to one side and said, ‘You would destroy my great works, but you will not succeed. I beg you, turn from this path or all will be lost.’

Horus reached out towards the golden warrior as he turned his sad gaze to the incubation tanks held motionless above him, weighing the consequences of future events in the blink of an eye.

Horus could see the decision in the figure’s wondrous eyes and shouted, ‘No!’

The figure turned from him and time snapped back into its prescribed stream.

The deafening howl of the warp-spawned wind returned with the force of a hurricane and Horus heard the screams of his brothers amid the metallic clanging of their incubation tanks.

‘Father, no!’ he yelled. ‘You can’t let this happen!’

The golden giant was walking away, leaving the carnage in his wake, uncaring of the lives he had wrought. Horus felt his hate swell bright and strong within his breast.

The power of the wind seized him in its grip and he let it take him, spinning him up into the air and Horus opened his arms as he was reunited once again with his brothers.

The abyss of the warp vortex yawned above him like a great eye of terror and madness.

He surrendered to its power and let it take him into its embrace.

Horus opened his eyes to see a sky thick with polluted clouds, the taste in the air chemical and stagnant.

It smelled familiar. It smelled of home.

He lay on an uneven plateau of dusty black powder in front of a long-exhausted mining tunnel, and felt the hollow ache of homesickness as he realized this was Cthonia.

The smog of the distant foundries and the relentless hammering of deep core mining filled the sky with particulate matter, and he felt an ache of loneliness for the simpler times he had spent here.

Horus looked around for Sejanus, but whatever the swirling vortex beneath Terra had been, it had evidently not swept up his old comrade in its fury.

His journey here had not been as silent and instant as his previous journeys through this strange and unknown realm. The powers that dwelled in the warp had shown him a glimpse of the future, and it was a desolate place indeed. Foul xeno breeds held sway over huge swathes of the galaxy and a pall of hopelessness gripped the sons of man.

The power of humanity’s glorious armies was broken, the Legions shattered and reduced to fragments of what of what they had once been: bureaucrats, scriveners and officialdom ruling in a hellish regime where men lived inglorious lives of no consequence or ambition.

In this dark future, mankind had not the strength to challenge the overlords, to fight against the terrors the Emperor had left them to. His father had become a carrion god who neither felt his subjects’ pain nor cared for their fate.

In truth, the solitude of Cthonia was welcome, his thoughts tumbling through his head in a mad whirl of anger and resentment. The Emperor tinkered with powers far beyond his means to master – and had already failed to control once before. He had bargained away his sons for the promise of power, and now returned to Terra to try once again.

‘I will not let this happen,’ Horus said quietly.

As he spoke, he heard the plaintive howl of a wolf and pushed himself to his feet. Nothing like a wolf lived on Cthonia, and Horus was sick of this constant pursuit through the warp.

‘Show yourselves!’ he shouted, punching the air and bellowing an ululating war cry.

His cry was answered as the howling came again, drawing nearer, and Horus felt his battle lust swim to the surface. He had the taste of blood after the slaughter of the Custodian Guards and welcomed the chance to spill yet more.

Shadows moved around him and he shouted, ‘Lupercal! Lupercal!’

Shapes resolved from the shadows and he saw a red-furred wolf pack detach from the darkness. They surrounded him, and Horus recognized the pack leader as the beast that had spoken to him when he had first awoken in the warp.

‘What are you?’ asked Horus, ‘and no lies.’

‘A friend,’ said the wolf, its form blurring and running with rippling lines of golden light. The wolf reared up on its hind legs, its form elongating and widening as it became more humanoid, its proportions swelling and changing until it stood as tall as Horus himself.

Copper skin replaced fur and its eyes ran like liquid as they formed one, golden orb. Thick red hair sprouted from the figure’s head and bronze coloured armour shimmered into existence upon his breast and arms. He wore a billowing cloak of feathers and Horus knew him as well he knew his own reflection.

‘Magnus,’ said Horus. ‘Is it really you?’

‘Yes, my brother, it is,’ said Magnus, and the two warriors embraced in a clatter of plate.

‘How?’ asked Horus. ‘Are you dying too?’

‘No,’ said Magnus. ‘I am not. You must listen to me, my brother. It has taken me too long to reach you, and I do not have much time here. The spells and wards placed around you are powerful and every second I am here a dozen of my thralls die to keep them open.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Warmaster,’ said another voice, and Horus turned to see Hastur Sejanus emerge from the darkness of the mining tunnel. ‘This is who we have been trying to avoid. It is a shape-changing creature of the warp that feasts on human souls. It seeks to devour yours so that you cannot return to your body. All that was Horus would be no more.’

‘He lies,’ spat Magnus. ‘You know me, Horus. I am your brother, but who is he? Hastur? Hastur is dead.’

‘I know, but here, in this place, death is not the end.’

‘There is truth in that,’ agreed Magnus, ‘but you would place your trust in the dead over your own brother? We mourn Hastur, but he is gone from us. This impostor does not even wear his own true face!’

Magnus thrust his fist forward and closed his fingers on the air, as though gripping something invisible. Then he wrenched his hand back. Hastur screamed and a silver light blazed like a magnesium flare from his eyes.

Horus squinted through the blinding light, still seeing an Astartes warrior, but one now armoured in the livery of the Word Bearers.

‘Erebus?’ asked Horus.

‘Yes, Warmaster,’ agreed First Chaplain Erebus; the long red scar across his throat had already begun to heal. ‘I came to you in the guise of Sejanus to ease your understanding of what must be done, but I have spoken nothing but the truth since we traveled this realm.’

‘Do not listen to him, Horus,’ warned Magnus. ‘The future of the galaxy is in your hands.’

‘Indeed it is,’ said Erebus, ‘for the Emperor will abandon the galaxy in his quest for apotheosis. Horus must save the Imperium, for it is evident that the Emperor will not.’

‘Horus, my brother,’ said Magnus. ‘You must not believe whatever he has told you. It is lies, all of it. Lies that disguise his sinister purpose.’

‘Those with courage and character to speak the truth always seem sinister to the ignorant,’ snarled Erebus. ‘You dare speak of lies while you stand before us in the warp? How can this be without the use of sorcery? Sorcery you were expressly forbidden to practice by the Emperor himself.’

‘Do not presume to judge me, whelp!’ shouted Magnus, hurling a glittering ball of fire towards the first chaplain. Horus watched as the flame streaked towards Erebus and enveloped him, but as the fire died, he saw that Erebus was unharmed, his armour not so much as scratched, and his skin unblemished.

Erebus laughed. ‘You are too far away, Magnus. Your powers cannot reach me here.’

Horus watched as Magnus hurled bolt after bolt of lightning from his fingertips, amazed and horrified to see his brother employing such powers. Though all the Legions had once had Librarius divisions that trained warriors to tap into the power of the warp, they had been disbanded after the Emperor’s decree at the Council of Nikaea.

Clearly, Magnus had paid that order no mind, and such conceit staggered Horus.

Eventually his cyclopean brother recognized that his powers were having no effect on Erebus and he dropped his hands to his side.

‘You see,’ said Erebus, turning to Horus, ‘he cannot be trusted.’

‘Nor can you, Erebus,’ said Horus. ‘You come to me cloaked in the identity of another, you claim my brother Magnus is naught but some warp beast set upon devouring me, and then you speak to him as though he is exactly as he “seems. If he is here by sorcery, then how else can you be here?’

Erebus paused, caught in his lie and said, ‘You are right, my lord. The sorcery of the Serpent Lodge has sent me to you to help you, and to offer you this chance of life. The serpent priestess had to cut my throat to do it and once I return to the world of flesh I will kill the bitch for that, but know that everything I have shown you is real. You saw it yourself and you know the truth.’

Magnus towered over the figure of Erebus. His crimson mane shook with fury, but Horus saw that he kept tight rein on his anger as he spoke.

‘The future is not set, Horus. Erebus may have shown you a future, but that is only one possible future. It is not absolute. Have faith in that.’

‘Pah!’ sneered Erebus. ‘Faith is just another way of not wanting to know what is true.’

‘You think I don’t know that, Magnus?’ snapped Horus. ‘I know of the warp and the tricks it can play with the mind. I am not stupid. I knew that this was not Sejanus just as I know that without a context, everything I have seen here is meaningless.’

Horus saw the crestfallen look on Erebus’s face and laughed. ‘You must take me for a fool, Erebus, if you thought that such simple parlour tricks would bewitch me to your cause.’

‘My brother,’ smiled Magnus. ‘You are a wonder to me.’

‘Be quiet,’ snarled Horus. ‘You are no better than Erebus. You will not manipulate me like this, for I am Horus. I am the Warmaster!’

Horus relished their confusion.

One was his brother, the other a warrior he had counted as a valued counsellor and devoted follower. He had sorely misjudged them both.

‘I can trust neither of you,’ he said. ‘I am Horus and I make my own fate.’

Erebus stepped towards him with his hands outstretched in supplication. ‘You should know that I came to you at the behest of my lord and master, Lorgar. He already has knowledge of the Emperor’s quest to ascend to godhood, and has sworn himself to the powers of the warp. When the Emperor rejected Lorgar’s worship, he found other gods all too willing to accept his devotion. My primarch’s power has grown tenfold and it is but a fraction of the power that could be yours were you to pledge yourself to their cause.’

‘He lies!’ cried Magnus. ‘Lorgar is loyal. He would never turn against the Emperor.’

Horus listened to Erebus’s words and knew with utter certainty that he spoke the truth.

Lorgar, his most beloved brother had already embraced the power of the warp? Warring emotions vied for supremacy within him, disappointment, anger and, if he was honest, a spark of jealousy that Lorgar should have been been chosen first.

If wise Lorgar would choose such powers as patrons, was there not some merit in that?

‘Horus,’ said Magnus, ‘I am running out of time. Please be strong, my brother. Think of what this mongrel dog is asking you to do. He would have you spit on your oaths of loyalty. He is forcing you to betray the Emperor and turn on your brother Astartes! You must trust the Emperor to do what is right.’

The Emperor plays dice with the fate of the galaxy,’ countered Erebus, ‘and he throws them where they cannot be seen.’

‘Horus, please!’ cried Magnus, his voice taking on a ghostly quality as his image began to fade. ‘You must not do this or all we have fought for will be cast to ruin forever! You cannot do this terrible thing!’

‘Is it so terrible?’ asked Erebus. ‘It is but a small thing really. Deliver the Emperor to the gods of the warp, and unlimited power can be yours. I told you before that they have no interest in the realms of men, and that promise still holds true. The galaxy will be yours to rule over as the new Master of Mankind.’

‘Enough!’ roared Horus and the world was silence. ‘I have made my choice.’

—

ERROR

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ERROR CRITICAL

TRANSMISSION COMPROMISED

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ALTERNATE REALITY DISCOVERED

ALTERNATE REALITY STABILITY: 57%

ALTERNATE REALITY DESIGNATED

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SUCCESS

—

And thus, Horus Lupercal made his final and most selfless decision. Erebus’s terrible words, the mocking of his dead son’s legacy by wearing his face as to achieve better purchase of convincing Horus to betray his beloved father, had made Horus untenable to such horrid ideas. 

To discard a message based on the envelope was not typical of the Warmaster, but here he had no obvious alternative. He stared at Erebus, and shook his head shallowly, curling his lip in disgust. He had killed the Custodes in The Emperor’s chamber. He could kill this repugnant insect that he had allowed to buzz in his ear for far too long. 

He strode forth, confident in his control of the situation. The filthy cretin before him would pay for his scheming, and his insult to the memory of Sejanus. He had no weapon, but no brother of his nor their sons had ever needed a blunt tool or a firearm to be dangerous. His fists, empowered by his battle plate in this metaphysical realm, crashed down onto Erebus’s shoulders.

The metal groaned in the might of Horus’s grip, and in it, the First Chaplain struggled. He groaned, “Horus! You are making the wrong choice! The galaxy will burn!” “Then, so will you!” The Primarch roared as he swung his bulk around, flinging Erebus skidding across the ground. 

The Dark Apostle groaned as he pushed himself up into a kneeling position, but Horus was already upon him, Erebus gasped as Horus took hold of his arcanely choreographed head from the top. His hands came up to pry at Horus’s fingers, but they only held tighter.

“Th-Think of the ruin this will cause! Your father, The Emperor, ascending far and away to leave you in the muck! Unremembered! Forsaken!” Erebus stuttered, his previous certainty and cool as scattered as the numerous pieces of his armor that had splintered in the crash.

“Then I will have maintained my honor, for I have dispensed with your traitorous council. To think I ever believed a word you’ve spoken, now...” Horus’s anger, and his presence as a Primarch in this place of unreality, of imagination, made him far more powerful by default than even the arcanely inclined Erebus.

“I, Horus of Cthonia, Warmaster under our Beloved Emperor, took many oaths on the day I swore fealty to my father and creator... I swore to serve him faithfully, to illuminate the populous of every world I visited, to protect them from harm’s way and to exhume from them their ignorance! I will not falter! And you, traitor, will DIE!”

And with that proclamation, Horus yanked Erebus upwards, reasserting his grip, before smashing Erebus onto the ground. While an armored Astartes, Erebus was all but a rag doll in the strength of the Primarch. Of course, his head would split, the black blood that ran through every serpent of his sort spilling out. It seeped around Horus’s fingers as cold breath escaped Erebus.

Horus was not satisfied, his fury not sated, he repeatedly assaulted the floor with the corpse of Erebus, who had long since gone limp and loose. Blood stained the front of Horus’s armor. Black, grey, or other unnatural colors. A twisted malady, that Erebus had been. And though Horus didn’t know it, the being known as Erebus had escaped from the soul realm, and the Primarch had only bashed a figment of his imagination into pulp.

Knowing now that Horus was determined to reject his participation in their great game, the Gods of Chaos were displeased. After all they had given to create him, to mold him into the Warmaster they so desired, and yet he turned spoilt rotten, so dedicated to The Anathema that he had attempted to murder their closest link to the materium.

Of course, as the original plot of the pantheon was proved undone, the illusions of the realm where Horus stood slipped away like sediment in a turbulent stream. They were torn from the ground, shattered and spread far away, and what came afterwards was the disorganized and terrifying realm of souls, it’s usual inconsiderate pother.

Horus felt the fantasy begin to slip away. The idea of turning Horus Lupercal, child of the Anathema, Warmaster of The Imperium to the whims of The Four had the promised impact when they were dispelled. Horus would not survive his refusal, though as he looked out into the great ocean from his sole standing plinth of what he had been informed wasn’t reality, he attempted to rationalize his own decision. What could have been.

What could have become of The Imperium had he truly taken control from his father. What he could have done with that power, with that responsibility, with that control. The control he might’ve sought in the face of the great bureaucracy that was spreading from Terra in tumultuous waves. He pushed these thoughts away though, understanding what they would become in the warp.

And with his relinquishing of that great promised control, his refuting of the ‘gift’ that chaos had desired he receive, he had performed his highest act of loyalty that he had asked of all his legionaries, and all of the Auxilia. He had made the most ultimate sacrifice. His final whispers would go unheard by human ears, for he stood most alone by human standard.

His soul split from his body in what he experienced as a thunderous crack, followed by the sinking feeling, what might’ve become literally his heart dropping into his boots. He gasped a final breath, his eyes wide, jaw hanging open. He looked a man stabbed. The shaking breaths being forced through dying physical and immaterial lungs were like precious aromas to the gathering daemons. He was now alone. Now stranded here, adrift and exposed in the tides of the warp.

And then, in the greatest feast held by daemonkind in recent memory, the helpless prey was collapsed upon. Dragged down by his ankles, hooked scythes, blood reddened talons, wrapping tentacles and other such instruments of pain and death, Horus would disappear. All was quiet for just a moment, even in a realm as unreal as the Warp, until the abstruse and indistinctive giggling of Gods was heard.

The snickering elevated into chuckling, horrible guffaws and wheezes, descending into mad and raucous laughter joined by all the faithful denizens and servants of The Powers, only given baritone by the eternally echoing death rattle of Horus Lupercal.


	2. The Urizen's Lament (DeadPhilosophy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written by DeadPhilosophy  
> Ihsahn Kurosh and Vritrasura belong to DeadPhilosophy

++Word Bearers flagship _Fidelitas Lex_ ++

++Somewhere near the Eye of Terror, Segmentum Obscurus++ 

++004.M31++

+++02:04 Terran hours+++

  
  


_“Hark! The brightest star falls._

_The moon no longer shines._

_The cadmium eye bleeds its final tears._

_ALL BEHOLD THE PRICE OF FAILURE.”_

Lorgar awoke violently, his skin glistening with beads of perspiration. A shiver wracked his body as an unearthly chill snaked its way down his spine, creeping through his flesh like a malignancy. The sound of his own labored breathing deafened him as he moved to sit up, and it took several moments before he found he could breathe normally again. He felt as though he were a child on Colchis once more, awoken by night terrors that mercilessly ravaged his mind and soul. It had been so long, and yet here they were again, tormenting him with images and words of foul portent. Carefully he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his eyes, pushing away the last remaining dregs of sleep. Images swam in his vision, scattered fragments of dream-fabric adrift in his mind like flotsam and jetsam cast away from a doomed vessel. A burning eye dripping scarlet tears, a canid beast disemboweling itself on a cold stone floor, the claws of writhing Neverborn reaching out and encompassing a dead moon. The ferrous smell of spilled blood burned in his sinuses, fresh as though he had stood before a great slaughter in the flesh. Shrieks and howls echoed in his ears, proclaiming horrors and foul epithets to everyone yet no one. Above all, one voice stood apart, familiar yet alien in its distorted form, twisted by agony far beyond any death-scream he had heard in his many ages of war and genocide. Someone wailed and howled through the Warp, torn apart, mutilated, and devoured alive by forces beyond the veil of reality. Lorgar felt the tears come to his eyes before he could stop them, spilling down the lines of golden scripture inked on his cheeks.

_“Why do I weep? Who am I weeping for?”_

The Urizen wiped away the tears with the backs of his hands and slid off of the bed, standing somewhat uneasily. He took a few steps forward and reached for the grey robe that hung over the back of his desk chair, carefully pulling it on. Even in the darkness, his genhanced sight showed him the leather-bound journal that sat upon his desk and the quill that lay beside it. Lorgar lit a candle, sat down in his chair, and opened the book.

+++02:37 Terran hours+++

A gentle sprinkling of Colchisian sand over the wet ink was just enough to dry the last few sentences the primarch had scrawled across the page. Each night terror had been illumination in its most cryptic form, something the gods had tried to show him, and he had little reason to suspect this would be any different. It had felt as though writing out descriptions of the strange, equivocal symbols with his own hand might help shed light on whatever it was the Pantheon wanted him to see, but thus far it had not worked. Lorgar rested his elbows on the desk, placing his head in his hands and letting out a small sigh. Helplessness gripped him like the claws of some great predator preparing to feast on his mind. Something was very, very wrong, he could feel it… but what? What great cataclysm had occurred while he’d slumbered peacefully in his bed? His brothers, especially Magnus, had made mastering their gifts look so effortless, and yet he himself still struggled to tame his own, much less to understand them until recently. Even then, nearly every tale from the Warp that wormed its way into his mind was an occult riddle, a scrap of nonsense symbolism. Frustration and urgency welled in him, a need to act and an inability to know just what he was to act on.

He needed to speak with Argel Tal.

+++03:07 Terran hours+++

The Crimson Lord had been roused from his slumber aboard the _De Profundis_ and ushered aboard a legion thunderhawk, with no explanation other than the primarch’s desire to speak to him. As the gunship landed on the _Fidelitas Lex_ , questions swirled in Argel Tal’s mind. If his father needed him so urgently, then something must be of terrible importance, something a simple message could not convey, that couldn’t wait until the morn, and likely required conversation. He felt the daemon’s grip on his insides tighten like a clenched fist as he stepped off of the thunderhawk, his ceramite boots thumping against the metal grate floor. It was almost as if the creature was trying to tell him something, or perhaps even warn him.

Lorgar looked up from the page in front of him as he sensed the Warp-touched presence of his son and the creature inside him, turning to look at the crimson-armored lord of the Gal Vorbak. Argel Tal stepped into the room, removing his Mk. IV helm from his head. Lank, unkempt black hair spilled out, framing his gaunt face like funeral curtains. In some respects, it was still a bit jarring to Lorgar to see how much his son had changed since Cadia and his subsequent journey into the Eye. Half of a year gone by in the blink of an eye.

“You called for me, sire?” asked the Gal Vorbak, “Is something wrong?”

He knew that was a foolish question. Of course something was wrong.

Lorgar gave a solemn nod, his gaze of antediluvian gold falling to the inked words on the page before him.

“Yes, my son,” he breathed, “the gods have shown me something is horribly awry, however I do not know what these images are conveying.”

“Another vision, after this long?” asked Argel Tal, tucking his helm under his arm.

Lorgar met his son’s gaze again, and he could feel the daemon peering out at him from behind his eyes. In turn, Argel Tal could almost smell his father’s distress, like a predator sensing the chemical burst of fear in its quarry’s blood.

“Yes,” said the primarch, “and I fear that whatever has transpired is grave, something I cannot undo or at least try to mend.” 

“I see,” said Argel Tal, his grey eyes scanning his father’s features as he pondered his predicament, “have you considered perhaps… asking for clarification?”

“Going to the source?” asked Lorgar, tilting his head ever so slightly in curiosity.

“Perhaps not the source,” said Argel Tal, adjusting his grip on his helm, “but the one who has guided us before, that horrid creature from Cadia.”  
  
Lorgar’s shimmering eyes widened just minutely, barely enough for Argel Tal’s daemon-empowered sight to detect.

“You speak of Ingethel,” he said, brushing his hand across the journal page, the golden glyphs inked along his fingers glinting in the candlelight.

“I do,” said the Crimson Lord, one of his eyes twitching in distaste. Ingethel was, for lack of better descriptors, a foul bitch. Unfortunately, the beast had often proven itself somewhat useful, and options at present were few.

“Then I will have to consult it,” said Lorgar, a look of distinctly human disappointment briefly flashing across his demigod features, “I want you to find Ihsahn Kurosh and bring him to the _Key of Solomon._ ”

Argel Tal was taken aback.

“If I may ask father, why?”

“I wish for him to accompany us on this journey,” said the primarch, rising from his chair and closing the journal, “I find his perspective on things… unique.”  
  
Still confused, Argel Tal nodded nonetheless.

“Of course.”

Still… why? Ihsahn was a skilled fighter, but otherwise unremarkable aside from perhaps being a bit too nice. What did Lorgar want with a random member of the Gal Vorbak? Sure, Ihsahn had led the forces of the Word Bearers during the Val'kyr campaign, but it was not all too uncommon for Gal Vorbak to be chosen as force commanders. Argel Tal purged these thoughts from his mind. It was better just to bring Lorgar what he asked for than to waste time pondering minutia.

++Word Bearers Light Cruiser _Key of Solomon_ ++

+++03:34 Terran hours+++

Ihsahn sat in silence on the observation deck of the _Key of Solomon_ , eyes closed and blood-hued Mk. IV helm resting in his lap. Over one green eye lens was the gleaming gold Serrated Sun, the light of the dimmed glow-globes on the deck slithering over its surface. Across his knees laid his sheathed power sword, _Ecclesiastes Diabolica_ , the string of xenos vertebrae hanging from its hilt swaying gently with each lurch of the ship. He wore a cloak now, unlike the last time Argel Tal had seen him. Black as crow’s feathers, it fell over Ihsahn’s right pauldron and was clasped at his gorget with a silver chain. Its surface was subtly embroidered with silver thread, taking the form of intricately depicted Colchisian moon lilies. Argel Tal knew comparatively little of who Ihsahn was, but his strange connection and fascination with the flowers was obvious. The Crimson Lord leaned against the wall across from the bench where the other Astartes sat, helmed and with his arms folded across his chest, watching his brother through crystal blue eye lenses. The Carrion Flower did not open his eyes, his red gauntlets resting motionlessly on his helm and sword.

Ihsahn was thinking. He could feel his brother’s unease when he had come to rouse him from his quarters, claiming the primarch had requested his presence. Something clearly was not right, but Ihsahn was patient. He would wait for his father to explain everything. Nonetheless, he could not help but let his thoughts wander.

_“The Sea of Souls is turbulent, brother.”_

The voice of the daemon was always grating and unpleasant in Ihsahn’s mind. He never heard his Gal Vorbak brethren mention their own daemons speaking to them with any frequency, but Haakon seemed as though he liked to talk. The creature was very good at testing Ihsahn’s patience.

 _“I gathered as much,”_ he thought back to the Neverborn inside him, _“I think whatever it is has been upsetting father.”_

 _“He knows,”_ whispered Haakon, _“Argel Tal knows.”_

Ihsahn opened his eyes, blinking away the Warp-hues that swam behind his eyelids. He glanced at the Crimson Lord, who was clearly watching him despite the helm obscuring his face. Perhaps Ihsahn was not as patient as he’d assumed he was.

“Father is upset,” he said plainly, adjusting the position of his sword across his knees, “otherwise he would not have asked for me in the middle of the night.”

“I take it you want to know why,” said Argel Tal, studying the other marine’s face and body language. At first glance, he looked too kind, his soft hazel eyes those of someone who tended delicate things, not those of a killer. A lingering glance revealed tiny glints of violet within them, like the eyes of the savage Cadian cultists. Under his left eye a row of black Colchisian glyphs were inked in minute detail, forming a single line of text.

_Each dream has jaws to crush us._

“Yes,” said Ihsahn, an odd tone leaking into his voice, “we are not simply meeting him here, I can feel the ship preparing for a journey. The Warp is turbulent, or so my _passenger_ tells me. Why is our father upset?”  
  
“He awoke from a vision,” said Argel Tal, shifting his stance slightly. Ihsahn’s reference to the daemon inside of him as his ‘passenger’ was unsettling to say the least. What sort of relationship had he formed with the creature while it was supposed to be lying dormant? He knew next to nothing of the daemon inside himself, and yet Ihsahn was on speaking terms with his own.

“Like the ones on Colchis…” said Ihsahn, trailing off a bit, “the horror…”

 _“‘The horror’ is right,”_ thought Argel Tal, _“what part of this has not been full of horror?”_ The Crimson Lord inhaled softly, pondering how his brother might respond to his next words.

“I suggested that he seek an audience with Ingethel,” he said, “perhaps the beast can provide answers.”

“Answers, maybe,” said Ihsahn, combing his armored fingers through his hair, “or lies borne on the tongue of a serpent. Even Erebus, wretched creature that he is, knows the Neverborn are untrustworthy beings.”

 _“No offense intended, Haakon,”_ he thought. The daemon was silent for a moment before his response pulsed through Ihsahn’s brain.

_“I take none, Carrion Flower.”_

Argel Tal chose not to acknowledge the comment about Erebus. While the First Chaplain had been his mentor, he had also been a source of argument and animosity. He brushed it off, choosing to focus on Ihsahn’s appraisal of Ingethel.

“There is little choice at the moment,” he said, “something is wrong and the primarch is desperate to know what.”

“The Warp itself is such a fever dream,” said Ihsahn, looking down at the steel grate floor, recalling how the same floor aboard the _Orfeo’s Lament_ had been so caked with layers of human viscera, “it does not know how to be straightforward regardless of a message’s importance.”

A third voice spoke next.

“That is why,” said Lorgar as he stepped onto the observation deck, resplendent in his gleaming crimson warplate, tri-horned helm tucked under one arm and _Illuminarum_ clutched in the opposite hand, “I am going to wring the truth out of that foul abomination myself.”

“Father,” said Ihsahn, bowing his head in respect to the primarch.

Lorgar offered a smile to his sons, but anxiety still shone through his artfully kohl-ringed eyes.

“Now my sons, let us get Ingethel’s attention.”

++Word Bearers Light Cruiser _Key of Solomon_ ++

++Over daemon world Cholymelan++ 

+++04:26 Terran hours+++

Ihsahn tossed the curved ritual knife to the deck beneath his feet, where it sent up a splatter of scarlet blood. The broken bodies of mortals brought over from the _Fidelitas Lex_ , both willing and unwilling, laid in filthy heaps before the three viscera-splattered figures, a demigod father and his loyal sons, bathed in the malignant violet light of the Eye of Terror as it shone through the massive viewport behind them. Parchments laid everywhere, smeared with blood in the shapes of Colchisian runes invoking the nightmares of the Empyrean. It was nothing new at this point, of course. The Gal Vorbak had done worse to survive, and even now both Ihsahn and Argel Tal could feel animal hunger rolling in their guts at the smell of spilled blood. Lorgar’s eyes burned white with eldritch witch-fire as his psychic might lapped over the deck and bulkheads like devouring flames. The neatly arranged pile of corpses before him began to twitch, and a faint mist of pink and violet rose from them as they started to melt into a morass of dark red fluid.

“Ingethel the Ascended,” called the primarch, tiny beads of sweat trailing down his angelic features as his amplified voice pierced the air, “speak to me, daemon.” 

The liquid viscera rose from the deck, a harsh light flickering from within it as it coalesced into a mass, psychic howling echoing through the ship as it did. An all too familiar voice erupted from it with the quality of violently hatching larvae.

_“Speak, Lorgar Aurelian… I smell desperation in your soul.”_

Argel Tal and Ihsahn stood on either side of their father, watching the writhing mass of fluid-flesh from which Ingethel refused to fully emerge. The malign erubescence of the creature’s unbirthed form within cast a glow over its surroundings like a lantern stitched from human skin. Lorgar leveled _Illuminarum_ ’s blood-stained head at the thing, almost accusingly.

“I want answers, creature,” he said, “explanations as to why I have been roused from sleep by torturous visions, why the songs of the Empyrean have been drowned by agonized screams.”

 _“You seek meaning?”_ rasped Ingethel in its genderless tones.

“Yes,” said the primarch, “something is wrong, foul one, and the gods give me nothing to work with.”

_“You will not like the meaning, Lorgar. It may break you in ways that only a human might be broken.”_

“I will have my answers,” said Lorgar, raising the massive maul to punctuate his demand, “show me what has happened.”

_“On the surface of Cholymelan. Come to the surface, and you will be given what you seek.”_

++Daemon world Cholymelan++ 

+++04:39 Terran hours+++

Lorgar was the first to step off of the Thunderhawk, his boots the first to touch Cholymelan’s obsidian soil. Runes blinked across his retinal display, though nothing like the confused mess it had shown during his time on Shanriatha. This world was more subtle in its corruption, but the technicolor miasma of hemorrhaging reality that bled across the sky behind its ebon clouds made the truth of it obvious. The runes stated that the air was breathable, and though he was skeptical of the veracity of that information, something was telling him he should remove his helm. Argel Tal stepped out of the gunship, followed closely by Ihsahn, and the two marines quickly stopped in their tracks as they saw the primarch release the seals at his gorget with a hiss and pull the tri-horned helm from his head.

“Father-” began Ihsahn, but he quickly fell silent as he noticed Lorgar was breathing the air without difficulty.  
  
The strong scent of petrichor and ozone hit Lorgar as soon as he removed his helm, tainted by something else he could not identify. A chemical taste in the air settled on his lips, harsh and alien. The two Astartes soon followed suit, removing their own helms and looking curiously at their father.

“The Warp is here,” said Lorgar, “but so is the Materium. They are in balance.”

“Balance in Chaos?” questioned Argel Tal, a soft breeze tugging at strands of his lank hair.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” said Lorgar, offering his sons an amused smile.

Cholymelan was a dark, grey landscape dotted with forests of coal-black trees and streaked with shimmering mists of ever-changing colors. In the distance, thick storm clouds poured down bloody rain, staining the far away hills red with massacre runoff. It was a mournful place, not vibrant with the Warp’s absurdity, but rather corrupted by the concepts of despair and desolation. There had been so little information on the place, the only available data being its name and a single line of text. _Hell in Eden_.

Ihsahn took a step forward, feeling something break beneath his foot. He paused, pulling away and inspecting the ground, brushing away the dark soil and rocks with his boot. A thick vein running through the ground had burst beneath his weight, weeping crimson blood across the soil. Cholymelan was alive, and verdant with black sadness.

“I see it, my sons.”  
  
The Gal Vorbak both looked up from the bleeding ground to where Lorgar’s gaze was focused. Atop a hill, in the shadow of a great, twisted tree, the horribly familiar form of Ingethel waited for them, great worm-body coiled upon itself. It was looking right at them.

+++04:39 Terran hours+++

The breeze toyed with the parchments affixed to the warplate of both Astartes and their primarch as they walked across the stygian landscape, making them flap like battle standards. The moist air left a stickiness on Lorgar’s face that felt a bit disquieting, and he hoped that removing his helm wouldn’t cost him later. As the three crested the hill, Ingethel’s carrion-stench hit them hard, thought not hard enough to drown out the smell of corrupted petrichor. The daemon looked right at Lorgar, one eye shriveled deep within its socket, while the other swelled with blood as though fit to burst. Filthy fur covered its face, framing a gaping maw crowded with so many bladelike teeth that it could not by any means close. It held out all four of its arms in greeting, the blackened pinions of its osseous wings twitching slightly.

 _“Perfect timing, Aurelian,”_ said the creature, beckoning the primarch with bony fingers, _“I want you to see something before we begin our discussion, it is… pertinent.”_

Ingethel gestured toward the sky, and Lorgar turned to look up at it, his sons following suit. The clouds had parted to form a patch of bare sky, and in turn the turbulence of the Warp broke away to display the stars glimmering in the void beyond.

 _“Look,”_ said the daemon, _“the Three Beggars shine brightly tonight.”_

“Constellations?” asked Ihsahn, not at all hesitant to speak.

 _“Yes, blessed one,”_ said Ingethel, bringing its hands together and steepling its fingers, _“like the ones revered by your ancestors, the ones you and your brethren wear upon your shoulders and fly upon your banners. The Three Beggars mean much to this world. Those who died upon its soil named them Pain, Despair, and Grief.”_

With each name, the daemon pointed to an individual constellation. Vulpine, corvine, and cervine in form respectively, the stars took the shapes of old Terran creatures. Pausing for a moment, Ingethel then continued.  
  
 _“It was said… when the Three Beggars arrive, someone must die.”_

“What riddles do you speak, worm?” spat Lorgar impatiently.

 _“Someone has died, oh golden child of Colchis,”_ said Ingethel, its tail writhing upon the ground, _“and the gods are in turmoil.”_

Lorgar felt a lump form in his throat. The screaming in his head mere hours ago. The tears in his eyes that he had no explanation for.

He was mourning a death.

“The burning eye with tears of blood,” he said, his tone grim and his voice quiet, “the beast tearing itself apart, the daemons consuming the moon…”

 _“The price of failure,”_ hissed Ingethel, its long tongue sliding over its teeth and slicing itself open in the process, _“the misplacement of trust in one who thinks himself superior to you.”_

Lorgar activated _Illuminarum_ , bright arcs of energy blossoming over its head, still caked with dried blood. He leveled the weapon at Ingethel’s malformed head.

“You…” he breathed, voice shaking, “you cannot mean…”

Ingethel rose up on its serpentine body, folding both pairs of hands together as its gaze bored into the primarch’s golden eyes, glassy with tears that threatened to spill.

_“The Warmaster, Horus Lupercal, breathed his last upon the world of Davin. He died loyal to the Anathema. The Neverborn have devoured his soul.”_

Lorgar’s body trembled. He wanted to lash out, to strike the daemon, to batter it with _Illuminarum_ until nought was left of its form but reeking pulp, to punish it for lying… but he knew better. Ingethel did not lie, not this time. The primarch fell to his knees, crimson ceramite crashing against obsidian gravel and soil, sending up a splash of blood as veins within the ground burst on impact. His helm clattered to the stones as it fell from his grip, and in another moment more _Illuminarum_ followed suit, its power field deactivating. The tears burst forth from his eyes in thin crystal streams, trailing down his cheeks as though following the lines of golden runes inked upon his skin. The kohl that darkened his eyes ran in black rivers down his face, tracing uneven lines like the hand of a convulsing scribe.

“No,” he mumbled, burying his head in his hands, “no, no…”

Argel Tal watched his primarch’s composure fall apart. Horus… dead? Ihsahn rushed to Lorgar’s side, placing a hand on his trembling shoulder, his lips curling back in an animalistic snarl as he glared at Ingethel. With a violent spark of energy, Argel Tal activated his lightning claws.

“Who did this?” he snarled, claws scything through the air as he pointed at the daemon, “whose machinations brought Horus down?”

There was a pause, a void filled only by howling winds and Lorgar’s muffled sobs.

Ingethel’s hellish rasp broke the tension.

_“Someone your father trusted to fulfill his duty. He speaks with the tongue of a snake.”_

Slowly, Lorgar’s head rose from his hands, eyes reddened by tears. His jaw clenched, his expression shifting rapidly from sorrow to the very picture of rage… and disgust. His mighty voice trembled with anguish as he spoke the name of the one whose failure brought doom to the cause of the Pantheon.

“Erebus.”

Arterial blood sprayed up from the ground as a massive crimson-armored fist struck, sending obsidian gravel up into the air. Lorgar let out a wordless roar of unrestrained emotion as he beat the ground again, tears of anger streaming in torrents down his face. Ihsahn and Argel Tal stepped back from him, feeling the beginnings of psychic backlash lap against their armor, leaving tiny crystals of hoarfrost on the ceramite. Ingethel watched, its mouth ever agape, displaying no expression known to material beings on its twisted visage. It was eating his pain.

“Father…” said Ihsahn, “father we should…”

Lorgar’s head snapped around to face him.

“KILL him,” he snarled, “I will kill him like I should have done long ago.”  
  
Argel Tal’s eyes widened.  
  
“Sire… I…”  
  
“Horus would still draw breath if not for this!” Lorgar hissed, “I have been blinded, Argel Tal. The failure is mine!”

Unexpectedly, Ingethel recoiled, slithering backwards under the shade of the massive tree. For a moment, it almost looked distraught. Ihsahn turned to look at the daemon.

“What is it now, wretched thing?” he spat.

Ingethel wasn’t the only one behaving strangely. He could feel Haakon squirming in his guts, writhing with frenzied discomfort. A sudden gasp from Argel Tal told him that his brother’s daemon must also be putting on the same frantic dance.

 _“He comes… he comes… the renegade lets slip a hound…”_ mumbled Ingethel, its tail continuing to thrash as it curled its limbs in on itself.

Lorgar pulled himself to his feet, taking up his helmet and _Illuminarum._ His teeth itched, right down to their roots.

“What nonsense do you spout now, fiendish bitch?” he growled, entirely through with Ingethel’s games and riddles.

_“HE COMES!”_

Every cell in Ihsahn’s body was screaming danger now. He exchanged glances with Argel Tal, who gave him a look of alarm in return. Haakon was mumbling nonsense in Ihsahn’s brain, a fog of words that meant barely anything to him.

“ _The renegade god. The renegade god. The renegade god. The renegad-”_ _  
_ _  
__“ENOUGH, HAAKON.”_

Argel Tal’s eyes were on the horizon now, where forks of white lightning stabbed at the land like the spears of immaterial hunters. Thunder roared, thunder like the howling of a great beast.

No. It was howling. It was definitely howling.  
  
“SIRE, LOOK!” he shouted, and Lorgar immediately turned to face the distant maelstrom. Something was writhing within the clouds, threatening to emerge and make landfall. A writhing body of long limbs and curved horns, a thrashing tail ending in… _something._ The primarch turned again, facing Ingethel as it cowered against the trunk of the tree.

“What is that?” he demanded.  
  
Ingethel choked out a response through a mouthful of its own blood.

_“The Renegade God sends forth a champion to disrupt the great game in this moment of weakness. Malal the Lost sends a weapon to kill you.”_

Lorgar gripped _Illuminarum_ tighter.

“What… have you not been telling me?” he demanded through gritted teeth.

 _“The unspoken terror,”_ said Ingethel, the charred pinions of its dead wings flexing, _“the lost fifth. He is the one who unbalances the game, the great Anarchist, the missing god. He sends forth his greatest Guardian of Contradiction to destroy you and all that the four have worked for. Erebus has unknowingly opened the gate for him to enter and further tear at our wounds.”_

“And you did not think to share this information with me at the very beginning, the existence of another god?” growled the primarch, a few tears still slowly sliding down his cheeks, either falling from his chin or entering his mouth as he spoke. The latter left the taste of saline on his tongue.

 _“He is not truly one of the Pantheon,”_ rasped Ingethel, pressing its back against the wizened trunk of the tree as it shrunk away from Lorgar, _“he is an outsider, a false idol. Even the most devout of your world’s ancient faith never spoke his name.”_

“You and I are going to have a discussion later, worm,” said Lorgar, “right now I have more pressing matters to attend to.”  
  
 _“You want to know what the beast within the clouds is. You and your sons will face him, but I cannot help you.”_

“Tell me,” said Lorgar, thumbing the activation rune on _Illuminarum_ ’s shaft. Once again, brilliant flashes of energy arced over its brutally spiked head like blooming flowers.

Ingethel’s swollen eye pulsed with loathsome, toxic blood. It curled its tail in upon its body, dreading what was coming.

_“Vritrasura the Unmaker. Assassin of Dreams, Architect of Terror, Right Hand of the Anarchist. Enemy to all and ally to none.”_

On the maelstrom-wracked horizon, the greater daemon descended, landing upon the dark soil with its spiked hooves sending up massive sprays of earth-blood. A taloned hand gripped a twisted scimitar of white iron, longer than Lorgar was tall and stained with the ichor of other daemons. Immense, smooth wings more akin to aquatic flippers rose from the creature’s back to pierce the clouds it had descended from, beating the turbulent air with a leathery smack. Tall, elegantly curved horns crowned a head with a hideous death-mask visage, awash in pearlescent white bone that faded into the vantablack exoskeletal armor of the body. Perhaps most disturbing of all was what sprouted from the end of its long, sinewy tail; the head of a woman, bone-pale face contorted in hate and charcoal hair wild, with barbed mantis claws jutting out from beneath the chin. Pallid eyes rolled in their sockets, and cracked lips pulled back to bare crooked white teeth.

Ihsahn drew _Ecclesiastes Diabolica_ , activating its power field with a hiss and a spark of toxic green energy. His blood boiled at the very presence of this fiend, and he found the baser instincts of Haakon beginning to assert themselves over his human judgement. He stood fast at his father’s side, glancing over to where Argel Tal stood opposite him. The Crimson Lord was on edge, and he pulled his helmet from where he’d mag-locked it to his thigh as he looked away from Ihsahn, placing it on his head. Ihsahn followed suit, sealing his helm to his armor and watching the confused indicator runes dance across his view as he stared at the daemon in the distance. This was different. It was nothing like the beings he and the rest of the Serrated Sun encountered within the Warp, nothing at all. This creature projected no meaning, no truth, no agenda, only terror and disorder of the purest sort. Even among daemons, the Guardian of Contradiction was an abomination, if the writhing in his gut was anything to go by.

When Vritrasura spoke, it spoke with two voices. One was that of a calm and collected man, while the other was that of a woman as lost to rage as the primarch of the XIIth legion.

_“AURELIAN.”_

The name boomed across the distance between the speaker and the being whom it belonged to, echoing off of the dark rocks. Lorgar slipped his tri-horned helm onto his head, the snarls and hisses of seals and hoses the only sounds that answered the call of the daemon. Its golden faceplate was the silent scream of an inhuman countenance, with an open mouth containing a hidden vox grille and ornately wrought fangs carved from the bones of dead Astartes. Void-black eye lenses gave an empty stare until lit from behind by the psychic fire beginning to leak from the primarch’s eyes. Horus was dead, but that did not mean Lorgar was about to let this abhorrence put yet another obstacle in his way. He couldn’t save his brother, but he could stop this threat, and he would even if it killed him.

“Only my sons may call me by that name,” he said, his voice amplified both by his vox and the Warp itself. He began walking forward, _Illuminarum_ held low at his side, the air around him humming with power.

Vritrasura straightened its posture, flickering eyes of white embers narrowing slightly as it watched the primarch approach, the face at the end of its tail seething in quiet rage. It studied its foe with a placid expressionlessness, taking a few casual steps forward before stopping again to observe Lorgar. The Urizen came to a stop, narrowing his eyes under his helm, enduring the horror-aura emitted by the creature like the scent of death.

“Come to me, daemon.”

The Guardian of Contradiction leapt forward, beating its powerful fin-wings and gliding on Cholymelan’s Warp-touched winds toward Lorgar, without a single cry of exertion, only an eerie silence. High above, the turbulent skies swam with dark clouds that continued sending lancing forks of white lightning into the ground where they released the smell of seared blood into the air. Vritrasura closed the distance, rising high only to fold its limbs tight against its body and dive in a swooping arc toward its prey. Lorgar raised his massive mace to meet the beast’s inevitable sword strike, only to find no such resistance as the daemon stopped short, wings snapping open to halt its movement and letting its hooves skid across the black gravel. Vritrasura sunk back into a fighting stance, flourishing its massive sword as it looked down upon Lorgar, beckoning the smaller being toward it with a twisted claw.

 _“Forward,”_ it hissed, _“unto ruin, fool.”_

Argel Tal sprinted forward, stopping several feet behind Lorgar, claws aflare with energy and the thrashing of an angry Neverborn in his chest. The overwhelming smell of tainted ozone assaulted his senses, but the creature within him was determined to cut through the sensory fog, to prepare for what was undoubtedly coming. He spared a glance at Ihsahn, standing a couple feet closer to the primarch. Ihsahn gripped his power sword in one hand and his bolt pistol in the other, snarls of daemoniac anger leaking from the vox-grille of his helm. Tension filled the air for a full minute as neither Lorgar nor Vritrasura made a move, each staring silently at the other.

“Ingethel,” said Argel Tal, his gaze still fixed on the abnormal greater daemon ahead, “why would you conceal the whole truth if we are the chosen of the Pantheon? Was it all for your own amusement?”  
  
A gurgle was the only response he received, and he looked over to see Ingethel lying broken upon the ground mere feet from him, its chest torn open and leaking ichor and viscera upon the stones. Ribs were pulled apart and jutted upward like the tines of a fork, framing the razed ruin within.

“Blood of Colchis-”

When he looked back, Vritrasura’s blade was awash with fresh, wet scarlet. It hadn’t moved an inch… and yet it had clearly gutted Ingethel like a fish.

_“H-he… hh… moves… without… hrrk… moving…”_

Two voices howling in simultaneous laughter cut the tension as Vritrasura doubled over, clutching its gut in hilarity, smacking the bloodied blade of its scimitar on the ground and flinging droplets of Ingethel’s ichor about in the process.

 _“I simply cannot give the emissary of the Pantheon any opportunity to intervene,”_ it said, _“you will die, and so will your beloved sons.”_

“That was a filthy trick, wretch,” said the primarch, standing firm, not moving an inch. Despite his cool façade, his mind was awash with worry. What other things could this creature do? Ingethel had called Malal an ‘anarchist,’ an embodiment of pure chaos and disorder, so much so that he would oppose everything in existence including the Pantheon. Vritrasura’s use of strange and unpredictable tactics seemed fitting. 

“If I am to die,” said Lorgar, “then strike me.”

Vritrasura howled, swinging its blade down to bisect Lorgar into bloody splinters of flesh and ceramite, but the primarch was too swift, darting to the side and missing the certain death-blow. The daemon spun the scimitar, its gaze locked onto Lorgar as he moved. A rapid strike nearly connected, severing the air mere inches from the Urizen’s horned helm. Roaring in anger, Ihsahn fired his bolt pistol, striking the daemon’s flank. The mass-reactive round tore but a small hole in the black daemonflesh with a spurt of luminous white ichor, but did little to stagger the creature. Vritrasura’s lips, already covering very little of its teeth, pulled back in a snarl, the second head letting out an angry screech. The face at the end of the beast’s tail drooled frothy slobber onto the ground as it lashed back and forth. The daemon raised its scimitar to the sky, piercing the clouds and bringing down dozens of blindingly white lightning bolts. The flurry of electricity struck the ground, sending up sprays of sizzling blood and rattling the earth beneath the Bearers of the Word.

“You just pissed it off, brother,” muttered Argel Tal, holding up his lightning claws to shield himself from flying rocks. Ihsahn snarled, sinking back into a firmer stance and bracing against the blastwave. Amidst the flying blood, rocks, and dust, Lorgar surged forward, drawing back _Illuminarum_ and crashing its spiked head into Vritrasura’s exposed knees. The daemon staggered, falling backwards but quickly righting itself with several powerful thrusts from its wings. It spun, throwing sable dust into the air as the ground began to writhe beneath its foes, like parasitic worms within flesh. Ihsahn’s eyes widened.

“FATHER! LOOK OUT!”  
  
Dark shapes burst forth from the ground, parasites birthed into reality. Avian creatures the size of fully-grown men shrieked in wild abandon, waving the backwards bone hooks they bore in place of wings. Lorgar turned to see a pack of them surging toward him, snarling and hungry. He raised _Illuminarum_ to strike, but found himself thrown several feet into the air by a swift punch from Vritrasura’s clenched fist. He hit the ground hard, sliding across stones that scraped the paint from his armor, cursing the distraction caused by the lesser daemons. Struggling to his feet, he was immediately forced to dodge the massive blade of Vritrasura’s scimitar, the battered white metal singing through the humid air over his head. Ihsahn and Argel Tal surged forward, lashing out at the lesser daemons with their blades. White ichor sprayed Argel Tal’s chestplate as he dug into the piles of creatures with his claws, his head pounding as the daemon inside him screamed. Even though the ceramite shielded him from the spray, he could still feel a phantom pain where it hit the plates. Ihsahn emptied his bolt pistol into the horde, dropping the empty magazine and reaching for a fresh one to reload.

“We have to keep these little bastards off of father,” he said, kicking the nearest one and watching its skull shatter against his boot.

“Way ahead of you- hrgh -brother,” shouted back Argel Tal, taking a strike from a bone hook in the gut. The hook scraped across his armor, sparking against the power cables. In retaliation, he dug both lightning claws into the creature, ripping its body apart with a grunt of exertion.

With his sons keeping the lesser daemons at bay, Lorgar was finally able to focus on his foe. He spun _Illuminarum_ in his hand, lashing out toward Vritrasura’s flank and channeling a torrent of psychic lightning through the weapon’s head as he did. The daemon suddenly vanished, leaving Lorgar stunned.

“Face me, DAMN YOU!” he roared, spit spraying the interior of his helmet.

Lorgar stumbled as a sudden force slammed against his midriff, and out of nowhere the white scimitar rent a gash deep into the crimson ceramite. Vritrasura’s body lurched forward out of the thickening fog, pivoting and swinging its tail around to strike the primarch. The woman’s head howled a banshee’s cry, dragging its mantis-claws across the primarch’s warplate until they latched onto the open cut and pulled. Lorgar cried out in pain as the claws sunk into the wound and dragged him across the soil by it. Grasping the female head in both hands, he dug his thumbs into the eyes, forcing a scream out of it. Vritrasura leapt forward and bucked, wrenching its tail upward and throwing the primarch over its head as the claws released. Lorgar smashed into the rocks and rolled several feet, splashes of scarlet blood painting the ground. _Illuminarum_ flew from his hand and clanked against the ground, rolling away from him. Agony flooded his stomach and left arm, where he felt a hairline fracture in his humerus just starting to knit itself back together. He blinked at a flashing rune on his retinal display, and stim injectors inside his armor stabbed hard into his wrist. In a matter of seconds, the pain faded. He pulled himself to his feet just as Vritrasura was coming around again. The Urizen reached out, and his fallen weapon twitched and rose from the ground, flying to his hand. The other hand clutched his stomach, blood seeping out through his fingers, rapidly coagulating into dark crusts. The smell of ozone burned his nostrils even through his helm. His mind itself burned in the presence of this creature. So much was wrong, so much irreversible damage had been done, and this _thing_ was just trying to finish the job.

Vritrasura came to a stop, licking Lorgar’s blood from its blade as casually as a child licking confectionery from a spoon.

 _“You are weak, and you will die,”_ it said, _“the Four will die, just like their dear prophet. True entropy is inescapable, fleshling.”_

Lorgar said nothing. He stood, panting, his flesh slicked with sweat and blood beneath his armor. Reaching a bloodied hand up to his head, he slowly pulled off his tri-horned helm, leaving a smear of scarlet across the screaming golden faceplate as he tossed it to the ebon soil. His eyes glowed faintly with ancient gold, surrounded by messy black smudges. A thin trickle of blood ran from each corner of his mouth, garnet-red against his tan flesh. Psychic fire began to flicker at his bloodied fingertips.

 _“L… Lorgar… RUN.”_ Ingethel forced the words out through a throatful of ichor.

Argel Tal wrenched his claws from the body of a still-writhing hook horror, turning to see Lorgar and the massive daemon facing off. His eyes were immediately drawn to the gore smeared across the primarch’s midriff and the jagged edges of the broken ceramite. For once, just once, he was inclined to agree with Ingethel. Ihsahn paused in his own slaughter, dropping the severed head of one of the avian daemons to the ground.

“Father…”

Fire bloomed into life and died upon Lorgar’s fingers. Once more as he had dreaded, the fickle nature of his gifts dealt him a blow, exacerbated by his blood loss. Vritrasura grinned, both of its faces baring alabaster teeth like bone spires. It flourished its blade in one flawless motion, lightning crackling across the ground as it took a step closer to the primarch. It raised the scimitar and swung downward, the strike connecting with a clang and a spark. Lorgar pushed back against the extreme force, the shaft of _Illuminarum_ the only thing between himself and being bisected by white iron, the sturdy weapon shaped by the hands of Ferrus Manus standing firm against the best Malal could offer. Lorgar’s teeth nearly cracked under the pressure with which he grit them together. His arms trembled and blood leaked from the corners of his mouth, dripping down his chin and neck. In the time it took for Vritrasura to swing its blade, Lorgar’s horror at the fizzling out of his psychic power had given way to fierce determination to survive. Through the blinding pain in his gut, still sharp despite the stims in his veins, Lorgar summoned every remaining shred of his strength and began pushing back against the sword, a cry leaving his split and bloodied lips. Servos whined and snarled within the _Armour of the Word_ as it too struggled against the daemon, synth-muscle tearing with a spray of sparks that left weeping erubescent weals on the primarch’s skin beneath the warplate. Weak little bolts of psychic lightning sparked from where Lorgar’s hands gripped _Illuminarum_ ’s shaft as he fought once more to call upon his abilities. He was losing his grip against the strength of the leering daemon, viscera-slicked hands slipping…

Lorgar lost his balance as the pressure against him vanished completely in the blink of a mortal eye, the white blade no longer above his head and threatening to bisect him. The force by which he had been holding Vritrasura’s weapon back caused his arms to extend violently, momentarily locking his elbows and nearly tearing the joints. A weak gasp left him, fading into the humid air as he fought to maintain his balance. In but a few minutes, countless scabs had formed and torn away from the gaping wound in his stomach. Anger flooded his senses as he readjusted his grip on _Illuminarum_ and brought the weapon back down to his side.

“WHERE ARE YOU?” he roared, turning and looking every which way, only to be answered by the sounds of his sons clashing against the avian Neverborn horde… and the faint chuckle of two voices on the breeze. So close, but so far. Lorgar knew just how much Erebus’s pride and arrogance had cost him, but this… salt in the wound did not describe it. Was there any hope against a foe like this? No matter how hard he searched, he could not perceive the daemon anywhere around him. No, it wasn’t a coward. It knew exactly what it was doing.

_“Pathetic.”_

The foul duet of voices echoed out across Cholymelan’s bleak landscape with no clear source.

 _“It is clear to me why the Pantheon chose you as their little puppet… a foul old mortal zealot holds your strings already. You haven’t had a single thought of your own in a_ very _long time, have you Lorgar? You’ve let your free will be overridden for so long by manipulative little worms that you only lash out against them when one of them breaks your toy! I should thank the spineless cur if I ever see him! Your plans are wet paper, little demigod, just like your ability to stand up for yourself. You will die like an animal, and your soul shall be fodder for the Anarchist.”_

Each of Vritrasura’s vile words pounded into Lorgar’s skull like the Butcher’s Nails of the XII legion. Insults carried on the tongue of a beast, but there was more to it than that.  
  
There was truth… and the truth made Lorgar Aurelian _very_ angry.

Kor Phaeron and Erebus. His closest advisors and confidants, one of which he had called his father for so long and given his, albeit sometimes unearned, love to. The harsh reality of recent events was beginning to unravel the basis for his loyalty and devotion, no matter how much he wanted to deny it. Had either of them ever really cared, or was he as the daemon said: a puppet? No, that couldn’t be, it just could not. His golden gaze searched the horizon in desperate anger for any sign of where Vritrasura could have gone. So much wrong so fast, so much pain. He searched, turning in circles, looking out beyond the field of dissolving daemon corpses quickly growing from his sons’ bloody work, looking out past the tree beneath which lay Ingethel’s broken, dying body.

There. A faint flickering of white lightning stabbing up from the ground. The primarch bared his teeth in a scowl of loathing, throwing his arms out to his sides, _Illuminarum_ gripped in one hand and sparking violently. Blood still flowed freely from his wound, the spilled fluids of a primarch a blasphemy against his gene-smithing.

“THEN COME AND KILL ME, MONSTER!” he roared in challenge, reddish saliva spraying from his mouth, his face the image of a graceful sculpture defiled among the scorched ruins of Monarchia.

The tongues of scorching lightning stabbed up into the sky as they surged toward Lorgar, leaving a trail of burning blood and crusty obsidian glass in their wake. Through the veil of reality the white scimitar slipped outward toward him, but this time was different. This time he was ready. This time the fires of rage and defiance surged through him as his own strike connected with Vritrasura’s blade, ringing out like the toll of a church bell across the bleak land. Vritrasura propelled itself forward into the world with a powerful leap, leveraging itself with its blade against Lorgar’s mace as it flung its body far over his head and onto the ground behind him. Lorgar spun as the daemon’s hooves hit the gravel, his eyes ablaze as he took a heavy two-handed swing at Vritrasura’s turned back. _Illuminarum_ ’s spiked head made contact with its spine with a stentorian thunderclap, perforating its onyx flesh with a spray of luminous white ichor and ripping into one wing on the backswing. The daemon shrieked as it turned around and lunged for its adversary, reaching a hand out and grabbing Lorgar’s throat with a vice-like grip, forcing the air out of him. Lorgar grabbed the wrist and squeezed, legs flailing as he was lifted off of the ground. Vritrasura leered at him, blazing white eyes boring into his own with sheer malice and excitement.

_“You asked for this, Aurelian.”_

Lorgar choked and sputtered, aiming to kick at Vritrasura’s throat as he felt the vertebrae in his neck shift under the daemon’s grip. Psychic fire flared in his hand as he clawed at the beast’s arm, gripping it as his gauntlet burned red hot and melted the daemon’s skin. Snarling, Vritrasura raised him up to slam his body into the dirt, almost knocking _Illuminarum_ from the primarch’s hand. Lorgar gave a sharp cry of pain as the impact jostled his damaged organs. As the daemon brought him upwards again, he thumbed his mace’s activation rune and swung it up into Vritrasura’s arm. Augmented by surging psychic lightning, the spiked head crackled as it met the daemonflesh, tearing skin and shattering infernal bone. Vritrasura shrieked again, a vulpine scream that echoed wildly across the landscape, losing its grip and dropping Lorgar to the ground with the loud smack of ceramite on stones. He rolled aside, just dodging a strike from the daemon’s angry, screaming tail, mantis-claws digging at the air between them. On his back, Lorgar swung _Illuminarum_ , connecting with the female head and smashing its skull to flinders. Liquid brain bubbled and frothed out of the remains of the skull base, splattering the ground below as the mantis-claws twitched and died.

 _“NO!”_ roared the daemon, clutching the end of its tail as the remains of the nascent creature shrivelled back into its body. As it watched in mourning, Lorgar pulled himself to his feet, hefting _Illuminarum_ over his shoulder, blood still dribbling from his mouth and lips and sweat slicking his tattooed forehead.

Argel Tal tore his claws free from the last daemon corpse, his armor a patchwork of scratches and claw-wounds from the berserking hook-horrors.

“Ihsahn,” he called, “look.”

Ihsahn looked up from his ichor-stained blade and the daemon entrails falling away from it, his eyes widening beneath his helm at what he saw.

“Father…”

Clangs of metal on metal rang out violently as _Illuminarum_ parried every strike of the white scimitar with Lorgar’s heavy-handed rage behind it. The golden demigod, seventeenth son of the Emperor of Mankind, screaming and bleeding, clashed with the fury of a cornered animal against the Renegade God’s most favored warrior. Crimson blood and snow-white ichor splattered the obsidian stones around the feet of the two combatants, shining wet in the violet-grey Warp-light filtering through the clouds above. The two threw bolts of white-hot lightning at each other, singeing flesh and armor and melting black sand into glassy crusts where the bright bolts missed their targets. While Lorgar had regained his psychic power for now, it did little to stagger the wounded Vritrasura. Attacks landed, did their brutal work, but left no lasting impact on the creature.

No, he would have to beat it to death.

Vritrasura leveraged its blade against _Illuminarum,_ shoving the massive maul aside as it leapt over and behind Lorgar with the aid of its flipper-like wings, driving a fierce kick at his lower back. Not to be outdone by such a creature, Lorgar turned to avoid the strike to his spine, however instead his upper arm took the brunt of the impact. He cried out in pain as his armor buckled and the previous hairline fracture split even more, audibly cracking open the bone. Agony flooded the limb when he moved it, but he blinked at the corresponding warning rune on his retinal display and ordered the _Armour of the Word_ to inject him with even more stims. The bite of the needles in his wrist reminded him he was still alive as he faced down the beast once again.

 _“Give up, fool,”_ hissed Vritrasura, speaking now with one voice and flourishing its blade as it so loved to do, _“entropy is inevitable, and so is the triumph of Malal.”_

Lorgar spat on the ground at the daemon’s feet.

“I tire of your words, creature,” he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his armored hand. His body was damaged, his brother dead, and his trust shattered, but he was not yet defeated. He was the only one who could bring the truth to mankind. He had to fight, and survive.

Vritrasura grinned.

_“Once more, then.”_

Primarch and daemon charged each other with fury beyond fury, each determined to destroy the other if it was the last thing they did in the material realm. Lorgar spun, driving _Illuminarum_ up into Vritrasura’s jaw with his momentum. Daemon teeth flew loose from its maw, scattering across the dark ground. Roaring and spitting, Vritrasura regained its balance, reaching to grab Lorgar by his already injured arm and throw him several feet. The force pulled the halves of his shattered humerus apart, rendering his arm almost useless. Crimson paint scraped free from the ceramite plates of his armor as Lorgar skidded across the ground, hitting a rock and tumbling a short distance until he dug into the ground with the head of his mace, finally coming to a stop as Vritrasura approached. The daemon raised its blade, preparing to unleash a final death blow upon the primarch’s prone form.

_CRACK._

The detonation of a bolt shell against the side of the daemon’s head gave a resounding echo that reverberated off of the distant hills and mountains, halting the creature in its tracks. Vritrasura turned to face the source of the new threat: two ichor-soaked Gal Vorbak, one with a smoking bolt pistol in hand. The daemon roared in challenge, lunging and swiping at the pair, but Ihsahn and Argel Tal each dodged in the opposite direction, moving to flank the daemon. Argel Tal’s claws sparked wildly as he flung himself at Vritrasura’s side, digging the powered blades deep into its onyx flesh and holding on like a lion upon its prey. Ihsahn skirted the opposite side, firing shell after shell into Vritrasura’s neck until his pistol ran dry, holstering it in favor of drawing his power sword and diving for his foe’s ankles. The copper-hued blade left deep gashes over the daemon’s ankles and shins, spurting fresh luminous ichor like white ink. 

Slowly, Lorgar once more dragged himself to his feet, his damaged arm lying unusable at his side as he brought _Illuminarum_ to bear and began slowly approaching the beast, the mace head sparking to life. He walked unopposed toward his distracted foe, taking full advantage of the diversion his sons had provided. Vritrasura fought desperately to swat away the small attackers, small as he himself stood a good three heads taller than their massive father. The white scimitar sang through the air as it missed the inhumanly agile Astartes, blessed as they were by the Pantheon. Lorgar finally came to a stop in front of the creature, bleeding, sweating, and broken, yet nonetheless defiant. His eyes blazed white with witchfire.

“Look at me.”

Vritrasura did not comply, continuing to screech and cry out as it flapped its wings in an attempt to throw Argel Tal from its back.

**+LOOK AT ME, WORM.+**

The psychic roar pounded into the screaming Neverborn like a crashing tidal wave, staggering it and knocking the two Gal Vorbak off of it, sending the crimson-clad figures tumbling to the ebon stones. Vritrasura, still bleeding from its head, limbs, flanks, and mangled tail, turned to face the blindingly bright soul that was the Urizen, burning like the fiercest of suns. Argel Tal got to his feet, the servos of his armor snarling in protest as he did. Ihsahn, patches of his warplate melted through by the burning saliva of hook-horrors, struggled to right himself, obsidian pebbles now dug into his raw, exposed flesh.

 _“Yes Aurelian, I look upon you now,”_ rasped the daemon, bringing its blade forward into a haggard ready stance as it struggled to stay material with its leaking wounds, parts of its body briefly flickering in and out of existence.

**+Crawl back to your lord, tell him of your failure. Grovel at his foul feet and tell him that the only thing you accomplished was opening my eyes to the deception of my life.+**

Lorgar stepped closer, crystalline frost settling on the gravel beneath his feet as he walked.

**+Tell him the sleeper has awakened.+**

The primarch, with all the strength he had left in him, charged one last time, slipping under the swinging blade of white iron and striking Vritrasura in the chest. The wet crack of shattering bone sounded out as the sparking head of _Illuminarum_ bit the dark flesh, ichor weeping from the many wounds the spikes tore when they struck. Ribs busted inward, stabbing like daggers of bone into the organs within, sending Vritrasura toppling backward onto the rocks. The white scimitar fell from its hand as its limbs scraped furiously at the ground, trying to right itself as it screeched in pain and desperation.

_“I… I will not be felled by a puppet!”_

Lorgar said nothing as _Illuminarum_ fell upon the beast’s skull.

++Word Bearers flagship _Fidelitas Lex_ ++

++Somewhere near the Eye of Terror, Segmentum Obscurus++ 

+++10:36 Terran hours+++

Lorgar sat in his meditation chamber, wounds wrapped in thick bandages beneath his loose grey robe. Despite the dutiful efforts of the Apothecarion, the scabs still cracked and oozed sticky yellow serous fluid into the gauze. Several tiny spines had to be removed from the wound in his stomach, left behind by Vritrasura’s vile mantis-claws and somehow not vanishing along with the corpse of the daemon. Candles flickered around the perimeter of the room, casting their wavering light on both Lorgar and the two other robed figures that sat in front of him, both with lank raven hair that framed faces patchworked with bruises and cuts. Aside from a few lacerations, Argel Tal had left Cholymelan mostly unmarked, owing to his experience and skill, while Ihsahn bore bandages over inflamed patches of raw skin, owing to extremely bad luck. Ihsahn worried about the state his armor would be in after its required repairs, but Argel Tal had assured him it would be fine.

Before the primarch sat the same leather-bound journal he had written the contents of his night-terror in, now with fresh ink upon its pages in sharp Colchisian cuneiform. Horus’s death, the Three Beggars, and the existence of the Renegade God, Malal.

“So much needed and lost,” said Lorgar, his voice low and soft, “and so much unwanted and gained.”

“We discovered that hell was real, father,” said Argel Tal, his grey eyes searching Lorgar’s features, “did you really expect that everything would be cut and dry, and that all your plans would go smoothly?”

Lorgar ran his hands over his gold-inked features, releasing a sigh he didn’t realize he’d been holding in.

“I was too naïve,” he said, resting his face in his hands, “and that cost me.”

Ihsahn’s brow furrowed as though he had just tasted something unpleasant.

“I cannot fathom how you could have ever trusted Erebus,” he said, “I always felt something was wrong with him and I do not understand how you never did.”

“I realized something on Cholymelan,” said Lorgar, lifting his head from his hands, “when that creature spoke, all the things it knew. It knew I was in denial despite not knowing myself.”

Argel Tal was silent. He much preferred not to speak of Erebus.

“I think they’ve been using you, father,” said Ihsahn, “Erebus and Kor Phaeron. They don’t treat you as a primarch should be treated. I bet Erebus was positively giddy when you entrusted him with swaying Horus.”  
  
“That was my first mistake,” said Lorgar, “my second was thinking that losing my brother was impossible.”

Argel Tal stared at the open journal in front of his father for a moment before looking at him.

“Where does that leave us, then?” he asked.

Lorgar looked between each of the Gal Vorbak before him. His dear sons, so loyal and true, the first to enter the realm of the gods… guilt weighed heavy on his heart that they would follow him to the bitter end, no matter how much more dire things got. Things were going to change, and likely not for the better.

“I am going to kill Erebus.”

  
  
  


+++END TRANSMISSION+++


	3. Consequence (Deus_Sol_Invictus and DeadPhilosophy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erebus and Kor Phaeron written by Deus_Sol_Invictus  
> Lorgar Aurelian, Argel Tal, Ihsahn Kurosh, and the assembled Gal Vorbak written by DeadPhilosophy  
> Ihsahn Kurosh and Belphegor belong to DeadPhilosophy

Fear. Fear dominated the life of the First Chaplain, worry dogging his every action, the terror that his infernal deeds would chase him to the ends of the galaxy, and then devour him whole. Over the course of mere days, Erebus had changed, becoming an almost entirely different individual following the first few hours. He remembered retreating from the Serpent Lodge on Davin, slipping away from the scene of his failure by blending into the ocean of lamenting Space Marines, mourning refugees and Imperial Army staff, and other such parties. 

He had slipped away by the skin of his teeth as he knew, and he had felt the precious blessings of the Pantheon lessen until it was if they had not existed in the first place. The prodigal Hand of Destiny now left to rot as a vestigial limb without any function. Erebus could not understand it, could not fathom that he would ever be abandoned by the Gods. They had loved him, they had needed him. He had been chosen, hadn’t he? Was one mistake really all that it took? 

His confidence was shattered like a glass sword, now only fragmented, but still sharp. He was prone to fits of rage during his rapid and incognito transport back to the  _ Fidelitas Lex _ , other times trapped in a seemingly never-ending despair that it was all over now. He’d broken a dream eons on the making. But more than merely failing to convert Horus to the side of The Four, he had killed the Warmaster. This was something that could not be easily forgotten, something not able to be brushed off. This would be directly engaged by Imperial Authorities.

—

The Stormbird was cramped to the Hand of Destiny. Claustrophobia plagued him like a sickness. A fear of darkness, and what dwelled in it. A horror in every previous act of worship. But a new sort of fear was that which he would encounter. He had made a bee-line to the  _ Fidelitas Lex _ as to shake the Sons of Horus from his trail, but he knew that if he were to survive another few days, he would need to put a great deal of defense between himself and the unfortunate side affects of what he had done. 

The understatement stung in his mind, unable to let himself believe that what had happened was his doing. He disassociated with the events, easy as it was with how they had occurred. He remembered the ferocious beating he endured at the hands of the vengeful Horus Lupercal and was paranoid of a recurrence every time he closed his eyes. Now he wondered if he would step off of the gunship and into the hangar, and he would be seized. It was a fateful question, an impossible query that followed him, as if doom casted a shadow. 

_ Do they know? _

—

Everything seemed normal for just a moment. Erebus waited for the mechanical gangplank on the back of the ship to descend, normally impatient to do the will of the Gods, he savored the moment before exiting. It could be his last. He cast his dark glance about discreetly, observing his surroundings for abnormalities. Two of his own body guards stepped off with him to his left and right, walking in lock-step with the killer of Horus.

A lone figure stood waiting for him, resplendent in beautifully wrought crimson warplate, a black cape embroidered with silver over one shoulder. The Astartes was bare-headed, his Mk. IV helm tucked under one arm and his lank black hair draped over his gorget. 

"Welcome back, First Chaplain," said Ihsahn, an artfully crafted false smile creeping across his gaunt, once-handsome features, "The Urizen sent me to greet you." 

The massive power sword at his hip was still sheathed, mercifully. At first nothing seemed off about the Gal Vorbak's appearance, but on closer inspection, recent repairs stood out just minutely on his armor, too clean and not yet as worn as the rest of the ceramite. He watched Erebus closely as though sizing him up, however this was not entirely unusual of him. 

No real red flags so far... nothing to worry about yet, right? 

  
  


Erebus seemed preoccupied, still searching for something even after Ihsahn had spoken. His ordinarily egomaniacal self interest seemed to have manifested into a new order of actions, his worry over himself evident. He was looking for traps, probably, or the wrong shadows on the walls to indicate hidden troops or something of the sort. He expected to be drawn and quartered by his kin at any moment, but fought hard not to show it. 

Erebus’s own familiarity with false smiles made him look Ihsahn in the face for a seemingly extended amount of time, trying to make a sure judgement on what he saw in the Gal Vorbak’s face. Was it hidden malevolence? Was Ihsahn to be his killer? The way Ihsahn stared back, Erebus pictured him licking his chops like a rabid dog, imagining into reality the dripping froth of the diseased war hound and almost scaring himself with the resultant image. 

Wary, Erebus replied. “It is good to  _ be _ back. I am here to see Lorgar.” He stated. It was insultingly casual, especially to one as invested in his Primarch as Ihsahn. He was Aurelian. He was The Urizen. He was The Enlightened. And a common murderer, undeserving of grandeur as he already was, was not going to be so informal about the Primarch. At least... not for much longer. 

Ihsahn tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. 

"I trust everything went well on Davin?"

“Yes! My first stage of the plan is concluded on Davin... I must align the necessary elements for the destruction of Calth next, but I chose to come back and make visitation upon your Lord briefly.” Erebus made to keep walking and his two guards with him, as if Erebus expected Ihsahn to walk and talk. It was easy to hate him now, with no sin in the idea, no wrong to will evil upon evil. To will ill upon the very living specimen of spectacular and catastrophic failure. ‘Your Lord.’ That was another insult…

Ihsahn's eyes flickered with hate for a moment, impossible to hide despite his attempts, streaks of Warp-violet threading through his hazel irises. Everything about Erebus disgusted him more than words could describe. Haakon seemed to agree, the daemon's presence writhing angrily in his insides in the presence of the First Chaplain. Again, Ihsahn smiled, this time with too many teeth. 

"I shall take you to him, then. Best not to keep  _ father _ waiting any longer, yes?" 

It was satisfying to him to jab at Erebus with the inflection on that word. Ihsahn knew what was coming. He knew the miserable, disrespectful cur before him was already slated to die by his father's hand, but it still felt good to be passive aggressive while Erebus was still alive. 

"This way, come along," he said, waving his free hand in beckoning and starting off to the doors. They slid open at his approach with a pneumatic hiss, and he stepped through ahead of Erebus. 

_ "Blood... want his blood..." _ mumbled the slavering voice of Haakon in his head, but he chose to ignore the creature this time rather than indulge him in conversation. He would have blood soon enough, of course.

Erebus’s hearts beat faster in his ears as Ihsahn gave him that toothy grin. The comment might have stung far worse than the bite, but Erebus needn’t get into any more a dangerous situation than he already knew himself to be immersed in. He had twitched a lip to say something in reply, but hadn’t pronounced a syllable before he stopped himself, barely glowering at the Gal Vorbak. Blessed Son? A puppet mongrel, to his eyes. A mutt, if there ever was such a thing. 

Erebus and his two guards moved behind Ihsahn until they finally arrived at the chambers of Lorgar. The room, typically stoked with incense and other such deific trappings that were meant to bring one closer to The Gods, instead contained several at the moment. Erebus walked further into the room, though his two guards stopped at the door, knowing their place outside of the three’s innermost circle between the Urizen, Hand of Destiny and Black Cardinal... 

Kor Phaeron was making conversation with his disciple, talking to the side of the head of his ‘son’, appearing to be making some sort of fatherly rebuke over a simple misunderstanding. Erebus only came into earshot near the end of it, approaching and looking them both over, and in the midst of his fearful search, he found that more Gal Vorbak populated the room. 

“...and that, my son, is why the gods must be placated in such a way.” Kor Phaeron finished, casting a glance onto his colleague. They shared a divide. Kor Phaeron had been taken in other parts of the galaxy to other duties during these times, performing different holy missions. They had grown distant and eventually viewed themselves as stronger than the other, either for having been closer to Lorgar or closer to The Gods. It had become a short and virulent conflict of who had who’s ear.

Ihsahn spied Argel Tal across the room, closest to where Lorgar sat of all the Gal Vorbak, and walked to take his place at his side. Glances were exchanged between them, but nothing more. Words would come after blood. 

Lorgar sat with his back to the door, golden tattoos glistening along the crown of his head in the light of countless candles ringing the room. He wore the  _ Armour of the Word _ , freshly repaired just as Ihsahn's had been, shimmering an identical shade of crimson to the Gal Vorbak, a deep, rich hue to the eyes as silk was to the fingers. He said nothing to Kor Phaeron now, his eyes closed and  _ Illuminarum _ laid across his crossed legs. No one announced the arrival of Erebus, for Lorgar already knew without looking. He could feel the familiar presence of the First Chaplain, this time bathed in trepidation. He finally opened his eyes, though he did not turn around to face his visitor. 

"Welcome home, Erebus." 

Two of the present Gal Vorbak moved to the door, locking it and planting themselves firmly in front of it.

Erebus looked upon the Urizen’s back and smiled initially, the deathly grin of the betrayer and greatest failure amongst the stars. Erebus’s Mk. IV warplate was shined and polished, though still possessed the dents and scrapes typical of combat. In reality, they were the marks of his hastily beaten retreat from Davin, the scramble so desperate and fervent that he had damaged his armor. 

“Lorgar, will you not face me? There is much to discuss... I’d prefer in pri-“ Erebus was cut off by the audacious CLUNK of the door mechanism... a blast door. Erebus turned to glare at the door for it’s interruption, but found the two unburdened on the wrong side of it. Quite the wrong side of it, actually. He looked at the two faceplates for a moment, and his anger faded. Resignation. 

Kor Phaeron apparently hadn’t gotten the hint... the old bastard marched over to the door, until just in front of the two. “Have you not a wit left? This chamber is for meetings with your lord, and you were not invited to provide audience...” Not seeing them even flinch, Kor Phaeron’s brow deepened. “...Leave us!... Can you not hear me?!” He shouted, though a tinge of fear infiltrated his tone... He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew something was definitely wrong.

One of the Gal Vorbak at the door, a massive Astartes with an equally massive Eviscerator chainsword slung across his back, sneered at Kor Phaeron's indignation. 

"The Urizen ordered us here, old man," he said with a smug hiss, spittle spraying the interior of his helm. 

"Belphegor!" snarled Ihsahn from across the room, "Watch your tongue!" 

Belphegor fell silent, reluctantly complying with his former sergeant. As much as Ihsahn hated Kor Phaeron himself, he and his brothers were not yet free to disrespect the First Captain. Beside him, Argel Tal looked on and said nothing, his eyes more drawn to Lorgar than to the foul old cretin. 

Lorgar smiled to himself, slowly rising to his feet and turning around,  _ Illuminarum _ in hand. His warplate, covered in glittering golden runes and wax-sealed prayer parchments cast strange lights about the small room. He paid no mind to Kor Phaeron and his complaints, rather focusing on Erebus. 

"There is much to discuss indeed," he said.

The witchsight that Lorgar made use of was an odd perceptory tool. Looking upon Erebus felt like holding one’s hands  _ just _ too close to a campfire, staring too hard into the sun. Erebus’s soul fire was a blazing pyre, the indistinct edges of the spirit wavering and shimmering, though it only burnt in a range of colors between a polluted oceanic green and the blackest of voids, the curling and bending phenomena making up Erebus’s place in the universe. 

It was rapidly retreating and then regrowing, as if in unison with his beating hearts. A fickle soul. Erebus started hard up at Lorgar, and his lip curled. 

Kor Phaeron interjected, the old fool seemingly not done making a cantankerous ass of himself. He did not understand the gravity of the situation as Erebus did. “What is the meaning of this, Lorgar?!” He shouted, bellowing with the gravitas and aura of a man in control. The man had spent his entire life pretending to be that which he was not. He was not a benevolent minister of The Powers. He was not a noble Space Marine. And today, he was most certainly not in control.

—

Erebus acknowledged two of these three points. He held up his hand, shushing the gormless old man. “Silence, Kor Phaeron. I know what Lorgar wishes to talk about, so I’ll say it like it is. No point dragging it out, is there...” Erebus smiled up into the Demi-God’s face. It was serpentine, callous, but also somehow light hearted, as though he didn’t bother taking Lorgar’s hefting of his great black power maul seriously. 

“Horus Lupercal is dead, and I’ve killed him. The central axis that The Four’s plan was to rotate around, is dead. He died loyal to the False Emperor, to the False God. I took every measure for success, Lorgar. I took him to the far future, watched him weep at the foot of a statue of his father deified. I forced him to look upon the horrid imperium of the forty-first millennium, and he despaired. I bared him to witness the scattering of the Primarchs, I told him the Emperor’s deepest, darkest secrets, and finally informed him of The Emperor’s final plan...” 

Erebus voiced all these things like a story one told to a child. A casual affair, not deserving of serious response or acknowledgement. But Erebus laughed, and his soul-fire flickered. The entire facade cracked. Erebus had been eaten up inside by the failure, as Lorgar could observe as self-evidently as if it were written in clear and legible upon Erebus’s face. Erebus feared for his life. He feared pain. He feared the gods. But worst of all, he feared Lorgar Aurelian now, more than he ever had.

“I divulged unto him the secrets of the universe, showed him the error of his ways and the galaxy that his inaction would produce, what the final result would be. I showed Horus hell. And, do you know what he said to me?” Kor Phaeron could not see the tears streaming down Erebus’s face, running through the rivulets produced by his facial tattoos. They ran with the terror of refugees, falling off his chin and landing on his gorget. They were genuine, the guilt and the sadness of failing The Gods inflecting a trembling reverence into all of his words. 

Soon, even his body began to shake, jerking movements in his chest and at the hip, his breaths shuddering, until he screamed at the ground, unable to look into the piercing, luminant gold eyes that bored into his very soul. 

“He told me that he was eternally vigilant! He proclaimed he was further illuminated beyond even we faithful! He said he would not falter, and that I would die!” The breakdown of spirit was clear in Erebus, such that he slumped to his knees with a great resounding crash, throwing himself into the position of prayer. “Deliver unto me, Gods of the Warp, the answer to my deathly query! What have I done wrong?! I was your faithful servant! I carried out every order! I buried our dead and led our wounded, I provided succor to the needy and the weary! Why?!”

The childish screaming and incessant wailing of the forsaken had initially made Kor Phaeron dismissive, thinking Erebus only trying to garner attention and forgiveness for a slight infraction or a missed goal, until he had spoken of the death of Horus, and his eyes widened with realization at the concept, initially disbelief so strong as to kill gods, until he merely stood in shock, unable to speak, unable to weep, and unable to react. He was beyond shocked, he was beyond the breadth of the emotional spectrum, experiencing an entirely new sort of horror. 

That the Gods had forsaken the Bearers of the Word. That one as competent if gaudy as Erebus could have failed them so spectacularly, it had to have meaning. It had to. He couldn’t discern one of it. Horus was to be their leader, the wager of wars destined to lead the crusade to truly rescue the future of humanity, how could this have happened?

Lorgar lunged, a striking snake lashing out at its prey, his hand wrapping around Erebus's throat. Slowly, agonizingly, he hauled him upward to eye level, pulling him in close enough that Erebus could feel his breath on his face. 

"I am done with your lies, self-importance, and incompetence. I am done with your lack of respect. Most of all however, I am done with your failures," he snarled, brow furrowed and perfect, white teeth bared, "You killed my brother, and you opened the door for the Pantheon's most ancient enemy... but even you, in all your _ supposed wisdom _ knew nothing of the enemy of all things, did you?" 

Argel Tal averted his eyes. Despite all that had occurred between them, it was still difficult to watch Erebus struggle as Lorgar squeezed his throat. Beside him, a smirk of satisfaction spread slowly across Ihsahn's lips like the crawling of a snail.

A million questions occurred to Erebus in a flash, who had seized him by the neck, and why? Erebus opened his eyes and found gold on the other side, shocked initially and in disbelief that the Urizen would attack him, let alone in this way. Had he and Kor Phaeron failed to domesticate the puppet of Chaos enough? Had he fallen much farther than he initially suspected? Was this the artifice of the gods, rueful for his folly on Davin? 

More made lightning fast arcs in his head. Would Lorgar kill him? Was this the end? Would Kor Phaeron survive? Would he do anything about it? What would the Word Bearers be without him and Kor Phaeron to guide them? They were the true architects, Lorgar and the rest merely followers, would they survive? Would killing him damn the entire cause of Chaos? 

Erebus took the wrists connected to the hands clasped around his windpipe. “L-Lorgar! Put me down!” He commanded, squeezing the wrists and then punching at them in futility, kicking his legs like a hanged man. He heard several of his vertebrae pop, the weight of his armor and the rest all suspended on his neck... if Lorgar were to jerk upwards, his head would no doubt come off, or at least the spinal link severed at a point of greatest weakness. 

“I will, AGH,” Erebus gasped for breath “Atone! Let me down!” He tried to hoist himself upwards to offer himself breathing room, pulling downwards on Lorgar’s arms. “Please!” He indignified himself, begging with some of the last vestiges of his remaining breath. 

Kor Phaeron stepped nearer to Lorgar, begging with Erebus, “Lorgar, you must let him down! What do you think you are doing? Do you think that killing the First Captain makes Horus’s unfortunate death right? Does it serve any purpose other than to make yourself _ feel _ better?! Put Erebus down, for Gods’ Sakes!”

"You shut your mouth!" Lorgar snarled, thrusting  _ Illuminarum _ in Kor Phaeron's face, forcing his adoptive father to back down. He turned his gaze upon the squirming Erebus once more. 

"There is no atonement for you," he said, golden eyes gleaming with deadly malice, "you let the Renegade God in. You destroyed everything through your own foul hubris, thinking you could manipulate me forever, thinking the gods loved you, that you were infallible." 

Lorgar threw Erebus bodily to the floor with a loud smack, looming over him like death's shadow. 

**+I am the Arch-Priest of the Dark Pantheon. I am the chosen of the gods. I am the one who owns you, and your life is mine to do with what I see fit.+**

His psychic words rocked the room, causing candles to flicker violently and casting a thin layer of glistening frost over everything. The Gal Vorbak watched in silence with bated breath. They had known what was to happen here, but watching it actually unfold was something else. 

Argel Tal watched Erebus struggle on the ground, coughing and sputtering as he fought to breathe again without Lorgar's hand around his throat. His mentor... the very reason he stood there in the first place... 

_ "He would have you die to further himself."  _

_ "What?"  _

The sudden voice in his mind startled him. A hungry, slavering voice with all the qualities of an Empyrean predator. 

It was him. The daemon was speaking. 

Ihsahn looked on, amused by how pathetic Erebus appeared now. The First Chaplain was always pathetic in heart and soul, greedy and filthy. He could always tell, even before his symbiosis with Haakon heightened his senses. Sometimes, for Ihsahn, it was just easy to tell when someone's heart was black. He turned, looking right at Kor Phaeron, and smiled, eyes alight with the flickering violet of the Warp.

_ Illuminarum _ leveled at the Dark Cardinal, and he only appeared more livid for it, but held his tongue for the moment, seeing now that Lorgar’s incandescent fury was slated to scorch Erebus from existence. If nothing else, Kor Phaeron would make right what Erebus had wronged, if given the chance. 

“Renegade God?” Erebus squeaked with the last of his breath, interrupting Lorgar but seemingly having his words eaten by the fury of the Primarch. As he was brought down harshly, Erebus was stunned, his body in shock and his mind reeling from Lorgar’s proclamation. 

Erebus stared up at Lorgar from his position on the ground, dumbfounded. A soft wheeze was heard from Erebus’s throat, until the brush of death seemed to pass over him and he was brought back to semi-awareness. 

“Renegade God..?” Erebus repeated to nobody in particular, his lips trembling. He didn’t appear to see Lorgar, as it was... rather, staring through him. His digits twitched and spasmed, the movements slowly coming back to him. The cool of the room settled over him like a mortuary dress.

"Yes, Erebus," said Lorgar, "the fifth Chaos god. The one whose name the Covenant did not speak, for they did not know it." 

He turned his head slightly, so as to look at Kor Phaeron. 

"Malal the Lost sent his greatest daemon to destroy me upon the surface of Cholymelan," he said, "and it is only because of Ingethel that I know his name and nature. He works against all things, and it is by your failure, Erebus, that you allowed him an opportunity to disrupt the machinations of the Four." 

He turned his head back to look at Erebus, his golden eyes casting a harsh glint like the edge of a ceremonial blade. 

"Killing my brother wasn't enough, was it? But of course, you could not have foreseen the coming of the Anarchist, as you never possessed the depths of wisdom in regards to the gods that you claimed to." 

Ihsahn's fists clenched a bit at the mention of the name. Memories of how Haakon had howled in his brain upon the surface of that bleak world were all too fresh. He stole a sideways glance at Argel Tal, finding his brother to be staring at his own boots, still and completely silent. The rest of the Gal Vorbak had been told of what had transpired on Cholymelan, but only they had experienced it. Until then, they might as well have been strangers... but now they were connected by a truth that could crush the galaxy itself. It was a truth that was bound to crush Erebus, at least.

Erebus lay in silence. He stared up at Lorgar, who didn’t even look at him as he spoke his failures, and slowly, his brow lowered in rage. 

“Why do you prolong me, then?” He spoke with the abandon of an agitated child but with the confident and timbre of a Space Marine. “Kill me. If I cannot be redeemed for the Gods’ love, then I see no point in continued existence, if it must be this way...” 

Kor Phaeron held his tongue, feeling the urge to speak of the Gods’ openness for all willing devouts to serve... he did not preach, though. Erebus was as good as dead.

Lorgar smiled, not a benevolent expression, but a twisting of his angelic features into something horrible to behold.

"Because you must be immersed in the weight of your sins," he said, gesturing with Illuminarum, "so the Neverborn will enjoy tearing into your soul even more when I do finally kill you."

He took a few steps forward, ceramite boots clunking against the floor with each step.

"How fitting that you will suffer as my brother did."

To suggest that Erebus needed to repent for his sins against the gods with his life made his resolve that much stronger. Had Erebus feared death? No. Never. The Gods had given him a future greater than he could possibly imagine, and he had been told that it was inevitable, that nothing would come about to stop him on his path to eternal glory. 

Then Horus had died in the serpent lodge. Erebus hadn’t known that he could fail, and that had shaken him to his core, but Erebus however had not been present as Horus’s spiritual essence had been subsumed by the writhing masses of the Neverborn. In fact, he had no idea that had even occurred. Only psykers seemed to react immediately, with psychic feedback from the warp riling through their skulls and interacting with their minds. As Lorgar’s night terror had proven.

“What?” Erebus still looked up at the Urizen, looking into his eyes, completely unafraid of his judgement, until Lorgar had added that particular anecdote. “They killed the Warmaster’s soul?”

"Devoured it," said Lorgar, his gaze hardening, "like wolves upon a carcass. His agony echoed through the Warp and stabbed into my mind," he gestured to his tattooed cranium, "and I will never forget that feeling as long as I live."

He thumbed  _ Illuminarum _ 's activation rune, the spiked head blooming to life with vicious sparks. Flecks of whitish, dried ichor clung to the weapon around the bases of each spike, a permanent reminder of Malal and his disgusting ilk. The Urizen took a step forward.

"Your actions not only killed my brother... _ they destroyed him. _ "

“That... that cannot be! Even despairing as he may have been, they wouldn’t dare! He was to make the gods supreme, he was to save humanity, they cannot possibly have...” Erebus’s resolve drained further away, what little he didn’t know he still had now gone, staring at the bits of decomposing warp matter scorched onto Illuminarum. 

Erebus lowered his head now, gaze to the ground, only now understanding true helplessness. His father loomed, and he was deserving of the doom that shadowed him. He thought, wondering if it were possible for the forsaken Hand of Destiny to stay the Power-Maul of a Demi-God. With his words, with his actions, by any means, but none revealed themselves to any of his perceptions. It was over. He was finished, and now he only waited for the killing blow. 

And so Erebus screamed. It was a testament of refrain, an excerpt of a life cut short summarized further by the awakened Child of Chaos.

Lorgar took another step closer,  _ Illuminarum _ held ready, his gaze full of palpable venom.

"There are consequences for disappointing the gods," he said, his voice a low rumble quaking with subdued hate and fury threatening to surface like a beast deep within a frozen lake, "it does not matter who you are, or who you  _ think _ you are to them."

The primarch was silent and still for a moment, watching Erebus in his pitiful state, his cries echoing off of every wall. The eyes and eye lenses of the surrounding Gal Vorbak gave a subtle, predatory glow as many of them leaned in closer to watch. The First Chaplain's volatile emotions filled the space just as the incense smoke did, and the Neverborn writhing within the bodies of the Blessed Sons could smell it, now possessed of a hunger that could only be sated by one thing.

Ihsahn felt it, the mental slavering of Haakon's incorporeal jaws.

Argel Tal felt it, and despite his mind's fierce protests the hunger still surged within.

Lorgar grit his teeth. He'd trusted this man... no, this  _ creature, _ for so long, considered him a close advisor, someone who could help. He'd been so horribly wrong...

He remembered the words that speared through his skull in the dead of night, the cryptic phrasing of the Warp itself, and they left his lips as he drew back  _ Illuminarum. _

"All behold the price of failure."

The head of the mace crashed into Erebus's torso with a massive thunderclap, crushing ceramite and shattering the First Chaplain's fused ribcage into flinders.

Erebus was cut off from his cries by the blow, now reduced to pathetic coughs and whimpers, murmurings of “Merciful Gods, merciful Gods!...” repeated over and over in original Colchisian. Tears streamed and blood swam across the deck underneath the First Chaplain. He resumed the stunned state he had endured when Lorgar had initially attacked him, muttering and spasming without true control. It could be argued that he had never possessed true control in the first place. 

Kor Phaeron watched. The old man did not avert his eyes from the murder unfolding, the justice being enacted. He found himself moved by the notion of righting the wrongs in bloodshed, though he knew that as the closest colleague and confidant of Erebus, he was likely to be the next target of Lorgar’s vindictive and brotherly rage. 

The Terminator stepped away, but kept watch, staring at the crushed midsection of Erebus. He heard the pleas of the damned addressed to his masters, and what he saw would change the way he perceived the old faith. He saw nothing. All of the belief and metaphysical differential in the galaxy could not save Erebus from this absolution. All of the occult ritual and maddening chants, all of the bloody sacrifices and dark promises, and yet not a thing, real or otherwise, stirred to his aid. It was... mesmerizing.

Lorgar swung again, his radiant features twisted in a vicious snarl. Emotion flooded his mind, in turn flooding his limbs with hateful strength and a drive to continue until Erebus's torso lay open in complete visceral ruin upon the floor.

_ "I am the master of my own fate." _

_ Illuminarum _ sent shattered ceramite clattering to the floor in charred chunks, hot blood splattering the prayer parchments on the primarch's warplate with ferrous red stains.

_ "I am the Arch-Priest of the Dark Pantheon. I am the Bearer of the Word. I am the father of this legion." _

As Erebus's gurgling, dying cries filled his ears, so too did Kor Phaeron's silence. It was hot and oppressive, like thick wads of medicae gauze stuffed inside a wound. The silence said more than words ever could.

It was awe.

By the time Lorgar unleashed his final blow, Erebus was still barely clinging on to life, frothy blood bubbling up from his lungs and leaking out over his lips. The primarch let  _ Illuminarum _ crash to the floor, flinging little gobbets of stringy viscera. The red fluids would wash away, but the stain of Erebus's blood would forever linger on the weapon. Lorgar reached for his belt, his hand clasping around the polished bone handle of a curved ritual knife, still flecked with body fluids from the hapless thralls sacrificed to summon Ingethel. He unsheathed the blade, kneeling down beside the First Chaplain's broken form. He leaned in close, whispering into his victim's ear.

"I have no further need of you."

The First Chaplain’s midsection had gone from a veritable bastion made by The Emperor’s gene-forging talent, clad in modern and top-of-the-line Mk IV Astartes Power Armor, to a grand red stain across the deck, seemingly surrounded by flinders of smashed grey porcelain and the shredded scraps of Erebus’s own scrolls of chaotic lore that had been affixed with shattered wax seals. 

Erebus, or more properly, what remained of him, stared up at Lorgar. His eyes no longer blinked, devoid of the characteristic arrogance nor surprise or the expected anguish. He looked strangely neutral in death, despite his own blood awash in his face, and as Erebus stared, Lorgar would notice that the eyes of the First Chaplain still swiveled in their sockets. Rancid intestines and entrails snaked around below the crushed abdomen, the tri-lungs visible and twitching, struggling to pump air, until they too succumbed and stopped moving. 

But yet Erebus persisted for the moment... there was clearly something he needed to do, before he passed. It might even be alarming, how he used his final seconds to recall what he had needed to do, though he understood good and well now that he was never going to get the chance. Maybe there was yet exoneration for him.

He appeared to be grasping at the barest fringes of living, lips twitching, muscles having their last convulsions, when he found what he needed in his mind. His last task. He marveled at it, wondering if the true purpose of the Hand of Destiny was to simply  _ deliver _ his message. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy? He hadn’t the time to think about it anymore, and he hadn’t the necessary care for what went on after his passing from the materium. 

He utilized the last of his strength, to lift his head off of the power-pack of his armor, to look Aurelian directly in his golden eyes. He smiled, perhaps not possessing the strength to bring mirth to the facial expression, and whispered. 

“Always.”

The heavy, bald head of the First Chaplain ‘thumped’ back onto his power-pack, a last wheeze leaving his dead lungs, and a wisened grin to his features. His business was concluded. He assured himself, as he fell into the depthless darkness of eternal rest, that he had done right by the Gods. Nobody could take his exculpation away from him, now. 

Not the False Emperor.

Not the Betrayed Horus.

And not Lorgar.

The ritual knife plunged downward in a fluid arc propelled by anger and disgust, a spray of crimson blood splashing the Urizen's face as he hacked repeatedly at Erebus's neck. Sickening wet noises echoed off the walls of the small room, and with a crack and a twist, the First Chaplain's head came loose, dribbling remaining blood onto the floor. The Gal Vorbak watched in insensate, animal anticipation, all traces of their humanity overridden by the Neverborn that lurked inside them, awakened by the spilled blood of the Hand of Destiny.

Argel Tal felt himself slip into blackness as the caressing whispers of his passenger licked over his mind like flickering tongues of flame. There was nothing now, no guilt, no conscience, no human disgust. His actions were no longer his own to take.

As Lorgar held the severed head of Erebus aloft, strings of glistening saliva dripped down Ihsahn's chin. Ihsahn was gone, and Haakon was in control now, hungering for blood like a starving man. It didn't matter what poetic words the Urizen shouted as he held that bloodied head aloft, eyes open and staring emptily into nothing, the only thing that mattered to the Blessed Sons now was to feast.

Before his eyes, Lorgar's beloved children surged forward like a foul crimson wolf pack, helmets coming loose and hitting the floor as desperate hands pried away chunks of damaged ceramite to expose the dead flesh beneath, toothy maws sinking into the succulent prize. The Gal Vorbak, now a wave of writhing, armored bodies, crawled like beasts along the floor, hands and teeth tearing ravenously into the corpse of Erebus, sating daemoniac hunger with his flesh and viscera. All at once, the sounds of panting and snarling filled the room, the sight of gore-stained lips and stringy, blood-soaked hair searing themselves into the primarch's memory. Lorgar stepped back, away from the rain of blood and broken armor, a tightness gripping his chest. He looked down at the severed head in his hands.

_ "No turning back from this. Not now, not ever." _

The Carrion of the Word Bearers Legion fed upon the carcass of the First Chaplain, and the Dark Cardinal looked on helplessly. He did not wear a distraught expression that one could identify immediately, but he slowly looked up from Erebus’s body and into the eyes of Aurelian, who had been in the process of stepping away. Kor Phaeron’s expression may also haunt the Bearer of The Word. 

Defeat shone in his face, and he looked as if he were a forsaken child. Lorgar could recall the contorted features of orphans his legionaries had made of non-compliant planets’ populations, and now Kor Phaeron shared their likeness. He said nothing, just looking, his eyes swiveling between the severed head of his compatriot and the focused anger of Lorgar.

Lorgar pulled his gaze away from the head clutched in his hand, his golden eyes settling on Kor Phaeron. He did not even need to utter a sound, the look on his face got the message across well enough.

_ I am the one in control. You could be next. _

He'd changed so much, so fast. The timid boy the old priest had once known was gone, and in his place was a man twisted by loss, anger, and the burden of truth. His gaze returned to the Gal Vorbak, watching the horror unfold as his sons gave in to the dark powers inside them. Bodies now stripped of their armor squirmed across the bloody floor as brother crawled over brother, seeking out a part of the corpse to strip of its flesh. The sounds... they were so horrible.

This was the truth he had so desperately wanted. This was the path that now stretched out before him.


	4. Roboute Guilliman, and his Governance (Deus_Sol_Invictus)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written by Deus_Sol_Invictus  
> Alerio Lucas belongs to Deus_Sol_Invictus

Macragge  
M31.004  
Fortress of Hera  
The Residency

The city streets of Magna Macragge Civitas were quiet, excepting the shuffling of footsteps on cobblestone roads, and rustling of black mourning robes, and the occasional sniffle of sorrow from a passerby, or wailing sobs kept stifled by closed doors and fastened shutters. It was well into the night cycle of Macragge, and looming over the greatest city in the Segmentum Ultima, was the greatest fortress in Segmentum Ultima. The Fortress of Hera.

Upon that most veritable of bastions, was Roboute Guilliman’s palace of governance, the Residency. It was every bit as august and ornate as one could imagine, though it lacked it’s typical luster at the moment, the ordinary slate grey of the praecental guard’s armor shrouded in black cloaks, and the occasional Ultramarine concealed his plate’s typical coloration beneath a sable tabard and loincloth. It was as the Primarch had ordered it.

No Ultima Sigils. 

No jangling Victorex Alpha.

No Honorifica Valorum.

No Valor Crests. 

No Status Symbols. 

Roboute Guilliman had stripped all of his present Ultramarines of their medallions, of their fastidious trappings, of their superficial and meaningless honors. He had done so out of grief, telling them that of all they could do in their entire lives, they could not surmount or compare their accomplishments or achievements to his beloved brother Horus Lupercal, in a way forcefully brought to peace from his life as a warmonger by a friend. 

Campaign Records state that a world called Davin’s moon was reported to have been inhabited by traitors to the Imperium, who had seceded from The Emperor’s Light, taking a wing of ships with it, headed by a disgraced commander turned governor named Eugen Temba. The record continues that upon the moon was found the derelict wreck of Temba’s flagship, _Glory of Terra_ , that Horus entered with a few squads of his sons. A Captain of the Sons of Horus died. 

It is unknown what else exactly transpired on the ship, but Horus had retreated from the hull of the ship with injuries to his form and his pride, as recorded and distributed by the remembrancer Patronella Vivar, who published what Horus had said in his final moments, after he had collapsed just in front of her, in a lengthy and gruesomely detailed valediction entitled ‘ _I Was There the Day the Warmaster Fell’_ , supposedly written in cooperation with a remembrancer named Ignace Karkasy.

From there, somehow smuggled to the surface of Davin, which he had only just brought back into official compliance. Taken to a heretical fain and prematurely, lying on what Roboute could only guess was a cold stone slab, slathered in some quack healing balm and his forehead dabbled with droplets of ‘holy water,’ no doubt in an uncertain delirium. Incredulous, if he were conscious enough, that he were not in his own apothecarium. 

Imagining it gave Roboute a terrible migraine. It felt like a pressure, just behind his eyes. He remembered reading through _The Day The Warmaster Fell_ in one sitting. He remembered what a dying Horus Lupercal had to say about his brother, Roboute Guilliman.

‘The responsibility lies with me. Throne! Guilliman will laugh when he hears of this: him and the Lion both. They will say that I was not fit to be Warmaster since I could not read the hearts of men.’

Oh how that stung. He pictured Horus lying on his back, his words quieting as he lost function. 

‘They were jealous, all of them, when the Emperor named me Warmaster, it was all some of them could do to congratulate me. Angron especially, he was a wild one, and even now I can barely keep him in check. Guilliman wasn’t much better. I could tell he thought it should have been him.’

Roboute couldn’t help but recollect. The words were scorched onto the grey matter of his brain, ever present and looming. His emotions threatened to consume him. He had already shed tears, even just reading the memoir.

It was irritating. It was burning, searing, blackening his heart. That blasted sycophant Patronella had egged on his brother in his final moments, if only to dramatize the words of a dying man, that horrid wench! Roboute seemed to come about from his thoughts for a moment, taking a deep breath… until he sank back into them in much the same way he leaned into his seat.

“You were made Warmaster because you were the most worthy, sir,’ said Petronella.

‘No,’ Horus corrected her. ‘I was not. I was simply the one who most embodied the Emperor’s need at that time. You see, for the first three decades of the Great Crusade I fought alongside the Emperor, and I alone felt the full weight of his ambition to rule the galaxy. He passed that vision to me and I carried it with me in my heart as we forged our path across the stars. It was a grand adventure we were on, system after system reunited with the Master of Mankind. You cannot imagine what it was like to live in such times, Miss Vivar.’

Roboute was forced to imagine, at one point or another, if part of this dialogue was forged to aggrandize her. As if some egomaniacal remembrancer would dare apply fictive ‘spice text’ to the low-lain Warmaster. As if they would _dare_ _._ But they clearly wouldn’t. 

There had been more that Horus had said. Direct quotes, he knew them to be. Horus had always been something of a wordsmith, a socialite with near incomparable charisma. He had said Sanguinius would be the greatest second choice, following himself. He had named the flaws and strengths of many of the Space Marine legions. But he had done something with one of his few, numbered, last hours that had driven Roboute Guilliman mad.

He had called the thirteenth legion vainglorious and conceited. He had implied Roboute to be a power-hungry, avaricious and thus envious lout. And now _everyone_ had access to, a most credible and respected, albeit late, source for that opinion. 

Since, the Ultramarines of the Legiones Astartes covered their livery and stowed their trophies and triumphs. Since, their Primarch stashed away his famous laurel wreath, hiding his Gladius Incandor. Since, Roboute Guilliman had concealed his pride and, in doing so, wounded it further. It was something he had worn previously like a great cape, the wonderful dignification he absorbed from his legion and his own personal acts of valor, irrespective of what a given opponent to him had thought of it. At the time, it had been easy to think that his brothers were merely overly judgemental or simply jealous. 

But from the mouth of a Warmaster, now at peace, it was different. 

So regarded was Horus in death that Macraggian citizens had adjusted in unison with the Legion. They too had taken to wearing whatever gloomy mourning cloth they owned at all times, as of the news’s arrival. Iterators wept like children, and Roboute held no contempt for them in that regard or saw them as unmanned, for he too felt the need, the urge to mourn his brother in most grievous a fashion. And so he did. 

Roboute spoke sparingly, and his words were often agitated from him by those brave enough to try and _make_ him speak. He appeared more dangerous than ever before in this state, because he had something to prove. He had become like the Lion of the First Legion, and that unnerved a great many of his closer legionary and mortal servants alike. 

The boldest of these agitants was the surrogate mother who had raised the Primarch alongside his adoptive father, Konor. She wore a black dress that hung to the floor, and a thin veil that allowed her to see, but only just. It hid her age from view, though she still experienced it, carrying a finely crafted but moderate of vanity walking staff. In her elderliness, though, still lived Tarasha Euten’s characteristic vigor and wit. And as she hadn’t slowed down with the passage of time, she didn’t appear to want to slow down for Horus Lupercal, either.

She had not been indecent in the face of Horus’s passing in undue time; She had initially been understanding of Roboute’s inactivity, long pauses, and lack of words. But it was clear now that, despite how fearless the woman typically was, that Roboute’s silence was excruciatingly unnerving. 

“Lord,” His ‘Chamberlain’ started, causing him to momentarily look up from the nowhere he’d been staring into. His feelings were bleak but nebulous. It was as if the world around Guilliman shifted to match his emotional palette; Dark, and miserable. “There are matters you must attend to. There has been an... _incident_ between your Legion and people that have come to pass, and as I know it, you’ve not heard a word of it in your isolated grumpiness.” Silence filled the air for just a moment… “Chamberlain, leave me be.” Roboute’s tone matched his visage. Deadpan and unfriendly. He was not done considering everything and nothing, and would not be done soon. And he noted the inflammatory language meant to inspire a reaction. 

Tarasha was resolute, though. “Roboute,” she began again, using his first name. The one she’d given him when Konor brought the boy to her. “You are neglecting your station, men and citizens. It is urgent, and needs your attention.” More off-color words. This was on purpose. He’d blatantly ignored her once or twice, back in the earliest stage of mourning, and she had tolerated it until recently. “I am busy,” Roboute lazily parried. It was not an effective defense in the slightest, but it did prove his point, that he didn’t care if it was a boldfaced lie. He was ‘busy.’ Perhaps she would finally come to realize that she was not going to wrest him from his contem-

“A legionary murdered a citizen today.” 

Roboute blinked twice. “What?” He asked, almost dumbfounded. Tarasha took a deep breath in preparation for a monologue. “An old man, an Imperial Army veteran who had served under the Warmaster, denounced him publicly. An Ultramarine overheard this, and intervened, attempting to intimidate him into stopping. The man didn’t back down, saying that the Warmaster had been careless of his and other Imperial Army men’s lives, and that he was ‘not sad to see him go.’ In response, the legionary shot him in the head with a bolt pistol.” This has to be bait. There was no way one of his sons had gone off like that, they were not twelfth legionnaires who charged bullishly into anything insulting with a blade drawn and a bad attitude. 

“That is impossible, mam, please leave me be-“ “He is in the Temple of Correction awaiting your judgement.” Roboute looked at Tarasha again. “My judgement?” “I said you would be there.” The old woman raised her head to look her ‘son’ in the face, and disappointment was shown in hers. It was angry, vengeful even. “I would let you mourn your brother until the end of time, if it would not besmirch my late husband’s legacy of a vaunted, just ruler in power, who cared for his subjects.” She’d had to do that. She’d had to have threatened him with his ‘father’, so many years after he was gone. He nearly bared his teeth and made an animal snarl in pretense to a vicious outburst of rage, but stopped himself, realizing too quickly that she was correct, and that Konor wouldn’t have approved of this display. 

A wave of bitter regret seeped through the strainer that was Roboute’s conscience, sour and moody soot clinging to the proverbial filter. His emotions didn’t come out any clearer or more refined, and so as he lifted himself out of his throne by pushing down on the armrests. Even despite their marble structure, they groaned under his bulk. His Armor of Reason was enwrapped and concealed by a long tabard, black as night. His robes of mourning fluttered as he rapidly made his way in the direction of the Temple of Correction, the whirring of fiber bundles and groaning of servos plenty indicative of Roboute’s rage. Tarasha Euten tried to give futile chase, but failed to follow him at his brisk pace and the difference between their strides. 

The aged woman huffed for a moment, leaning on her staff, and gazed up at a fresco on the ceiling of Guilliman’s reclusiam. It depicted a terrible minotaur of ancient Macraggian myth, doing battle with a virtuous battle-king of a bygone era. 

Roboute carried no weapons, excluding two lightning claws he had begun wearing only recently, in alternative to the Hand of Dominion. They were golden icons of authority, each gilded digit engraved with the name of a vaunted Macraggan ruler of the older eras, ‘Konor’ on Roboute’s right pointer finger. As individuals, they were uniquely effective blades, deftly efficient and capable, though as a greater whole, Guilliman wore them under two titles. Administration, and Jurisdiction. The sectioned talons curled into sharp fists as Roboute ground his way towards the gilded doors of the Temple of Correction. A new, unique anger filled his heart. 

By the time he had arrived at the great passageway, he had raised both hands up to his shoulders in height and shoved both of the openings wide, making his ingress wearing a face swathed in contemptual furor, taking stock of the anteroom in fractions of a second. Drakus Gorod stood over a simple legionary, a hand placed heavily over the pauldron of the obvious transgressor, who appeared to be trying to explain his actions to the equerry and bodyguard. Drakus was clearly ignoring him. The legionary apparently hadn’t yet figured out that he was preaching to the choir.

He’d stopped when Guilliman had thrown the doors open, instantly turning to look at Roboute. It was here that Roboute analyzed the malefactor. He was a tad shorter than the average Ultramarine, red haired and brusque featured, scarred across the face, at the moment, experiencing the closest emotion to fear that the transhuman legionaries could experience at all. Guilliman made a baleful approach, his gait heavy and deliberate. He appeared as a coming storm, nearly incandescent. He arrived just before the manacled Space Marine and looked down at him, opening his mouth to mutter an accusation. “Is it you, then? Did you kill an innocent man?”

The Ultramarine hesitates, starting once before finding his words, unable to look Roboute in the eyes. “He wasn’t innocent,” the Legionary purports, staring intently at the ground, his expression earnest. “...Warmaster Horus was a great man, and I thought you wouldn’t have anybody speaking ill of him during this period of mourning.” Guilliman’s facial muscles pinched together as his frown deepened. “So you drew your bolt pistol and shot him?” His voice was unbelievingly skeptic, under lit by near conniption. He leaned over the young Space Marine, his teeth gritted, looming. From here, he could not only see it, but he could _smell_ it. Droplets of blood and a few stray spacks of viscera and brain matter had dried and clung to the Legionary’s armor.

“He…” The Legionary starts again, being cut off by Drakus Gorod. “This Legionary, Alerio Lucas, was detained by his squad’s sergeant an hour ago, Primarch. The body of the concerned citizen, Retired Imperial Army Lieutenant-Commander Dawson, was also recovered.” The High Suzerian of Ultramar looked up at Roboute with far greater bravery and confidence than Alerio. He met the Primarch’s gaze, and said with a tone only used by those who knew the possible repercussions of their words, but didn’t care, “He has been waiting here pleading his case to me for thirty two minutes and eleven seconds, Primarch.” 

“I have Gage to tell me when I’m not up to speed, Drakus.” Roboute warned. Drakus, for his status and knowing of his place, nodded respectfully and looked away whilst the Primarch dealt with Alerio. The Lord of Ultramar turned his heavy attention from his bodyguard and equerry, onto the disgraced son of his before him, his gaze weighted and expectant. “So tell me why you shot that man. Concisely and succinctly. Is the long the same as the short of it, that I’ve heard?”

Stammering briefly, Alerio began again. “Yes, my Primarch, I will… I will tell you…” The Legionary sighed.

“I was on the break end of my duty cycle, patrolling despite. I was alerted to a public disturbance, in Civitas Magnas, and responded to the call, figuring that reinforcing the Praecental Guard or Vigil Opertii would be a worthy use of my time, and that maybe the public could do to witness a Space Marine in these dark times to remind them of the glories humanity has and will experience.” He paused, waiting for a rebuke from Guilliman, but none came, so he continued. “... I arrived ahead of those forces and found that there was a middle-aged man, rambling and causing trouble with his words; telling everyone that Horus Lupercal was not worth mourning, and that he would not be missed…” Alerio waited a moment… still no interjection. 

“...I tried to de-escalate the situation, but he had drawn a crowd and looked ready to sic them on me. It happened in a blink. One moment he was shouting obscene untruths and the next… I am sorry, father.” Alerio kept his eyes averted from Roboute’s, focused on the ground and filled with sorrow and remorse. But sorrow and remorse didn’t make the murdered man any less dead.

“You are young and foolish, Alerio. You should have further assessed the situation, thought more critically of it. From whence to attack, and to whose defense, would a crowd jump to? The crazy bastard was denouncing _Warmaster Horus_ , _publicly._ You were in the right to de-escalate it, but you executed your assistance of mortal authority much like you executed a delirious, ill-tempered old man.” Alerio opened his mouth to protest that pronouncement, but closed it after Roboute leveled an even sterner glare on him. The Primarch opened the fists at his sides, finally untensing the clenched fingers, and sighing. He had been ruinously inactive and docile, but eviscerating one of his disobedient sons would not do, and would only further anger the outrage likely already developing. 

“I pass my judgement onto you, Legionary Alerio Lucas. You will be formally marked for seven hundred and fifty hours of service to Macragge’s administrative government, during which you will be barred from combat duty. You will be publicly flogged by your squad sergeant at Gallan’s Rock, and then you will report back to the Residency immediately afterwards.” The Legionary kept his gaze averted from the Primarch, not even daring to look at his feet, feeling as the lowest and most unworthy of sons. He ventured to open his mouth and ask his father, “What more could you need of me here?”

“I am The Sole Consul of Macragge. You will do as I command, and today, I command that you see the true difficulty of managing the entirety of the Five Hundred Worlds, and how much a blunder the caliber of yours muddles up my work. You will be made to rectify your debt to decent society, as I see fit. And as I see fit, you are to become within those seven hundred and fifty hours, a _paragon_ to Ultramarines everywhere on how to conduct oneself when dealing with the merest, most defenseless of humans, outside of dismissing all options that do not come naturally to you.” Roboute stared Alerio in the face, his strictness absolute and indicative. 

Seven hundred and fifty hours was, obviously, much longer than it took the average Legionary to learn a given art or subject. There was a point to be made, symbolism to be made boldface. Nearing the end of the Great Crusade, with colossal and glorious victories behind him, Roboute had pondered what would become of him and his legion when Father elected to call the Great Crusade to a close, when it was all over and done with. When humanity ruled the stars, where would the Space Marines and their Primarchs make repose? Would there ever truly be rest for any of the Legions? In Guilliman’s mind, he saw a purpose for his Legionaries once they were out of territory to seize and enemies to kill. 

He saw a bright, noble Ultramar, tended to by the native Space Marines who worked, lived, and died there. He saw them becoming great senators, protectors, and dutiful paragons of the virtuous society that Roboute sought to build. He would do right by Konor, only when the time was right.


End file.
